


Nyérë

by Nilozot



Category: Supernatural, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Avari, Captivity, Childbirth, F/M, Forced Pregnancy, I did read LACE, I'm Sorry Tolkien, M/F Rape, Overly Catholic bits of LACE ignored, Pregnant Sex, Redemptive!Sam, Regret, Season 6-8 warped to author's will, Soulless Sam Winchester, Tolkien Elves - Freeform, Torture, Touch-Starved, Trials
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-26 19:46:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5017972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nilozot/pseuds/Nilozot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While on a mission with the Campbells, soulless!Sam kidnaps and holds captive a rare immortal creature, one who resists his tortures at every turn. Ten months later his victim tracks him down for retribution, only to find his soul has returned, and that Sam has no memory of her or the events leading up to her pregnancy.</p><p>Written for Iddy Iddy Bang Bang 2015. You have been threatened/enticed/warned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For convenience's sake I skipped all of SPN season 7 and the beginning of 8. The wall in re-souled Sam's mind lasted a lot longer than in the show, and they skip straight to the bunker and the Trials after the Campbells bite it.

The Campbells were packing up and heading out, with both conventional and supernatural weapons gleaming. This was another bag-and-slaughter mission, the most exhilarating kind as far as Sam was concerned. Some kind of fae gathering in the far north, Samuel claimed, although where he was getting his info was a mystery. Actually this whole trip reeked of suspicious insider information, what with the hi-res infrared satellite imagery of obscure Canadian forest, dry technical dossiers on the fae's physical capabilities, and a complete lack of in-person reconnaissance. Not your average dirt-poor hunter research, in other words. The Campbells' unknown benefactor was obviously hot to have this particular monster bagged, tagged and wiped off the face of the Earth.

Not that Sam cared, one way or the other. The experience was what he was after: Tromping through miles of thickly forested valleys at the height of summer, sneaking up on a party of powerful and ancient creatures right when they least suspected it, the euphoria of blood and reflexes and the feeling of a weapon in hand. All this is what motivated Sam nowadays, since coming back from the unremembered hell. He suspected he was demon of some kind now, free of normal human emotions but still riddled with hedonistic impulses emanating from his curiously not-meatsuit body. Sex and alcohol and the drug-like effects of exercise and the thrill of killing something with your own hand, it was all a blur of pleasurable stimulus/response.

He was still under control, though. Most of the time. It was almost a game to see how far over the top he could go, and still not incur the suspicions of the Campbells as to his true nature. Those motherfuckers were pretty far gone themselves, although they didn't recognize it.

“All right now, listen up everybody,” Samuel called to the troops. Besides Sam's cousins there was a whole bevy of paramiliteristic dudes in combat armor wandering around the Michigan compound. They really were serious about this one. “You've all read the reports about this type of fae's abilities. We'll be going after the younger embodied version of the creature, so it should be visible to everyone. Superior strength, speed, reflexes, eyesight and sensory awareness. They have the ability to heal and a high level control over their biological processes in general. They may have access to unknown technologies or magic. Do _not_ underestimate their capabilities. If their sentries catch wind of us, they will fade into the forest as if they were never there, and it could be hundreds of years before they gather together for another celebration such as this. Once in a lifetime opportunity here, so don't fuck it up, people.”

Samuel didn't have to mention that they were hoping the alpha itself would be there. In fact if these creatures were acting like any of the other monsters the Campbells had encountered lately, this wedding was just the start of another round of breeding, so “hundreds of years” might be hopelessly pessimistic. None of that was in the report of course, for it wasn't an official part of the mission to bring any of them back alive.

The dossier had contained a bewildering variety of names for the fae, some evidently from the creatures themselves passed down from mythical civilizations long dead: _kw_ _endi,_ _eldar, avari,_ Hidden Ones, Star-Folk, _alfar,_ the fair folk. But one name rendered in English made Sam laugh out loud, buried as it was in the clinical jargony report.

Elves.

* * * * *

The mountainous country in northern Ontario where the Elves were gathering turned out, unsurprisingly, to be a bitch to access. The hunter caravan, consisting of small rugged jeeps for cross-country access, had stolen over the border on one of their unmarked roads two nights before the solstice. The closest they were able to get to the valley in question, though, was nearly twenty miles away on an abandoned logging road, now marked only by the compacted ruts of machinery long past, which likely turned to flooding gulleys in the winter. This far north it was cool even at the height of summer, and light twenty hours a day.

Three groups set out silently, single file, in different directions. The plan was to surround the festivities as best they could over such a wide geographical area, and strike at around one am, the darkest part of what little night there was. Sam privately thought it was likely many of the fae would get away, given their reputed speed and the vast tract of forest available to retreat into. But it didn't matter that much so long as they were able to knock out a few, preferably the oldest ones if they could be identified, and put a bullet in the heads of most of the runners. Old Sam probably would have found that tragic, to cut off a virtually immortal species, one that showed no signs of current danger to humans, no matter the rumors that they faded to malevolent spirits in old age. New Sam found it thrilling to be the instrument snuffing out creatures who were breathing back when people were still throwing pointy rocks at the mastodons. Their age made it _matter_ more. Think you're above humanity, ancient bitches? Think again.

At the last mile right around the settlement, the forest subtly changed. Up until that point it was a typical pine blur, mile after mile of the same damned verduous pointy trees. But then the moss changed over to leafy vines, and wild pinks and oranges and blues of tropical flowers snaked up the frequent trucks. Completely unnatural and foreign to near-tundra Canadian forest. A smell wafted through the forest, fruity and perfumed, and Sam knew these creatures had altered the environment for their own, completely oblivious to their rightful surroundings.

As they approached the festivities, the soldier closest to Sam suddenly took a shaft through the chest. An _arrow_ , for fuck's sake, stabbed through the heart without warning not three feet from where Sam stood. The shot came from an impossible distance up above, a miracle feat even with modern scope rifles.

The rest of the party didn't hesitate. _They_ had modern weapons, and with ten assault rifles a visual on the assailant turned out to be unnecessary. The creature dropped fifty feet to the forest floor, and with a cautious look around, the group surrounded it to get their first close look at the enemy.

Long elaborately braided black hair. Thin and tall. Perfectly unblemished skin that was a ruddy brown color. Androgynous. Sam doubted he could tell it from human, aside from its supernatural modelesque beauty. The thing obviously had amazing eyesight, for it had taken out one of their party from a hundred paces with nothing more than an animal-stringed bow. Sam guessed it was young, though, just based on its behavior. A more experienced warrior would have impulse control to warn the others before taking random potshots. Now one of their chances to avoid being surrounded had been lost.

No other sentries appeared as they tightened the noose around the alien celebration. A coded clicked sequence through their walkie-talkies confirmed the others were in place on the other side of the valley, waiting for starbreak. The festivities had clearly been underway for hours by the time they were in position. From his vantage point crouched down in the bushes, Sam could see a great bonfire had been lit down in the heart of the crowd. The smell and smoke of roasted meat permeated the surroundings, making the dancing figures all around the fire seem to fade in and out of existence, as ephemeral as one would imagine from fairy legends.

Up on the ridge, over to his right, Sam heard a lilting laugh. Away from the fire it was getting too dark to see much beyond rough shapes, but he could make out what appeared to be a tent composed entirely of flowers. It had been dark long enough for his eyes to adapt, but still he flipped the infrared goggles down from off the top of his head to see if any heat signatures were bleeding through the flimsy screen. Two figures inside, although “inside” was a misnomer; the structure only functioned as a privacy screen instead of actual shelter. They were far enough away from the party to be mostly out of earshot, so Sam crept closer, suspecting who they were. The dossier hadn't contained much information on Elvish wedding rituals, but surely when future children were expected, there was consummation. And indeed, the two figures were laying on some kind of raised platform or bed, extremely close together.

Sam's walkie-talkie clicked the signal to attack.

He knew he should be aiming down at the main party and taking out escapees, but the perverse thought of killing the wedding couple was too amusing to pass up. So his first aim wasn't towards the bonfire below, but at the two bodies right in front of him, straight through the flower vines. Might even get lucky and take out both with one shot. Sam raised and fired, just as he heard the echoes of a dozen other shots fired down at the revelers below.

The music abruptly stopped, but there was a surprisingly lack of screaming and panic, from what Sam could hear. And then, from the tent in front of him, the sole sound piercing through the valley was that of an extraordinary wail, almost melodic in its grief and misery. The sound, Sam mused, of someone being ripped limb from limb, or that of a parent whose precious child was murdered right in front of them. The sound of incalculable loss. Maybe the noise-bearer was crying for the whole valley, or maybe she was the only one unconcerned enough with her own life enough to grieve for the probable genocide of the rest of them.

Either way, obviously he missed one.

Sam glanced down at the party below, to assess his probable risk. All the Elves had scattered from the fire, but none had run up the hill near his position. There was no mass exodus. Obviously the creatures had the mental capacity to turn on a dime and organize to defend themselves. Also obviously, the lack of defense meant inhabitants of the hut weren't the group's highest priority.

So Sam approached the scream. As quietly as he could, he moved the flower strands aside to take a peek. The interior of the structure was covered in even more flowers, and it wasn't even so much as a flimsy shelter, but open on top to the dazzling stars above. On the bed were two of the fae, both naked, both with long black hair completely loose and unbraided, the whole platform covered in viscous blood. The bride – easy to see it actually was the female now, since they conveniently had their clothes off – cradled the groom's head in her lap, even though his neck had been shot out. They were so covered in blood, Sam couldn't tell whether he'd injured her too. A curious smell permeated the room, reminescent of human post-sex musk but somehow more earthy, and laden with perfume from the flowers.

He must have moved or shuffled the vines, for her head jerked up and mouth clamped shut, cutting off that damnable noise. She lunged for something on the ground off to the side of the bed, but was at a massive disadvantage both psychologically and in physical position, so he was easily able to tackle her and pin her to the bed.

“No, no, none of that,” Sam said, pleasantly he thought. No need for yelling unless it was necessary. “Be a good girl and don't fight back.”

She responded by wrenching a hand free and attempting to dig her nails into his throat. That did piss Sam off a bit. He sat up on top of her, still with his entire weight at her hips so she couldn't roll or wriggle away, and grabbed the pistol at his waist and slammed it across the side of her head. The blow had enough force to crush a human girl's skull like a melon, but apparently these elves were made of stronger stuff, for it barely rendered her unconscious. She did flop back though, moaning slightly and twitching, as if she were about to seize.

Sam sat up straighter and shifted his weight back, but remained on top of her while he decided what to do. Bullet in that pretty head would be the most expedient, but he _did_ have her in a restrainable position, so he could choose to bag her. A breeding female was unlikely to be high on the totem pole, but who knew how successful his compatriots outside were going to be on actual capture. One more probably wouldn't hurt.

He pulled his pack off and rummaged through it for some duct tape, to keep those fucking hands at bay when the girl fully woke up, in the near future he guessed from the way she was wriggling around. Legs too, although he left the mouth untaped so she could possibly give him some information about the alpha, assuming it existed. As Sam was tying her up, he noted each of her fingers had a ring, some intricately carved metal, a couple enlayed with tiny precious stones. Probably worth something later. Sam also bent over and found the weapon she'd been going for, which appeared to be a bejeweled-handled knife with a lethal edge and beautiful woven leather scabbard. Ceremonial? A gift? Worth some money, that's all Sam cared about. He tucked the knife into his bag.

Sam rolled the body of her lover over just to get a closer look in the dim light. From the side the face had looked … familiar. Now with a full view, he actually jerked back, such was the surprise.

“Huh,” Sam said out loud. Freakish place, the universe.

In the dim light it was hard to compare coloring, but he guessed both the hair and eye color were wrong, darker on this creature than his brother. Definitely the real Dean would be horrified by the elf's waist-length silky girl hair. But its face was nearly identical, minus all the small imperfections Dean had acquired from getting beaten up and knocked out so many times. In body, too, it was like a younger clone, less bulky than his brother nowadays but just as tall and lithe as Dean had been in early twenties.

“I will kill you, human,” said a raspy voice. Oddly accented, but in English. Sam shifted his attention back to the trussed up naked figure on the bed, next to the dead creature that looked so much like Dean. “I vow on Eru's name that someday, when you least suspect it, I will come up behind you and slice that disgusting neck of yours open. Your pathetic life will drain out, just as you have stolen mine.”

“Oh, really,” Sam said. “Brave words from someone about to eat a bullet.” He climbed back on top of her, jerking her bound hands above her head and leaning in so his head was only inches from her face. “Tell you what, honey, you give me the information I want, and I'll make this quick. No torture, no rape. You can join your husband here in whatever monster heaven your kind goes to. Deal?”

Despite her restraints, she still managed to strain her neck up even closer to his face. “Cut. Your. Throat.” He half expected her to spit in his face, but she didn't, just stared at him with implacable, unflinching hate.

“Fine, have it your way.” Sam slid one of his hands down in between them, and shoved his fingers into her cunt. He wanted at least a good scream from that, but all he got was a sharp inhale. Well-controlled bitch, that's for sure, despite the earlier wailing that could pierce eardrums. She was dripping wet but still tight, a reminder that the girl was about to get laid not ten minutes ago. Sam wondered if they had made it to the actual fucking before being so rudely interrupted. Probably not, based on the turgid condition of the corpse next to them. Well, he could remedy that.

Truthfully, he hadn't thought about assaulting her until the words escaped his mouth. It wasn't like sex wasn't readily available back home without resorting just taking what he wanted. But the situation did seem to be one that invited a little personal reward, historically speaking. Once the thought occurred to him, it was like, why not? Why not really break a feisty opponent, and have fun in the process?

“You know, in the information we received before this, there was an interesting tidbit. Seems that when one of your captured buddies was raped, they didn't make it. Just gave up and died, not a scratch on them. _You're_ going to put up more of a fight, I hope.” He shoved in harder as she involuntarily beared down, closing her legs, trying to expel him, grinding her teeth. “Tell me if he's here.”

“You forgot to ask the question. Idiot and fool,” she hissed, and Sam ripped his free hand back up to slam it right back into the wound on the side of her head. Now she did spit and shake, and began to laugh, which enraged him even more. “Do what you will, evil befouled man. I might very well die. Isn't that what you and _your_ kind came here to do, destroy our bodies and free our spirits? Whose spirit did you expect to find?”

He wanted to punch her on the mouth, cut out her tongue, anything to stop the laughing and mocking, but he needed her tongue. For now. “Your alpha.”

Even as he interrogated her, Sam shifted his weight to flip her over. Her back wasn't going to work too well, and no matter what she said now, he had no intention of killing her right away. She was tall for a girl, probably at least as tall as Dean, but didn't weigh much, and he must have had fifty pounds on her. No way she could escape or harm him. But still she flailed and tried to knock both of them off the platform. He grabbed her long, vulnerable hair and shoved her face down into the bedding. Ten seconds, twenty seconds, to quiet her down, then roughly tipped her head to side when she finally stopped struggling.

“The alpha, bitch,” he repeated. “Even the fae must have one.” Low. Even. He was the one in control.

“I don't know that word,” she croaked. Now she sounded genuinely puzzled. “You think we are faeries?”

“Your leader. Your father. The bastard creature that started your race. All of you monsters have them. Tell me, was your wedding a big enough social event for grandpa to come?”

She began to laugh again, or maybe sob, it was difficult detect the difference. Breaking at last, perhaps, although Sam couldn't tell what had pushed her over. Maybe the prospect of rape really did do them in. Physically strong, mentally weak.

“You don't know. You don't know. The entire world of men has forgotten us. You think we are the same as the corrupted vermin that feed on you and your own. They debase all of Arda, and so do you humans. Why couldn't you go on forgetting?”

Sam released her hair in order to loosen his belt. It could have been gibberish coming out of her mouth, or possibly she just didn't know who the alpha was. Either way, now he was curious if she'd break down. She was a feisty one to be sure, and every bride deserved to get fucked good and proper on her wedding day. Plus he had some literal bloodlust, a phrase he'd never considered before but now made perfect sense. Lust among an ocean of blood. Adrenaline and control and squeezing a person's life out at the fingertips and the knees. Her agony for his pleasure. He was as hard as he could ever remember at the prospect. Maybe when all was said and done, if she gave in enough, he'd give her peace and draw the knife across her throat, for the symmetry.

Even with her legs shut he slid into her, and she didn't utter a sound. Just clinched everything tight by reflex, which of course wasn't going to do anything but hurt herself and create delicious friction for him. Sam lay forward on top of her back, not caring if he crushed her, and buried his face in all that glorious hair splayed out around her head. Most girls wouldn't even make it up to neck height on him, but _damn_ she must be tall. It'd be more fun to take off his clothes, feel that newborn-soft skin below his chest, but he'd be too vulnerable to attack that way. Maybe arrangements could be made for a next time, assuming she didn't croak.

He rammed into her hard, over and over, although it didn't seem to damage her much. In fact she seemed to be wetter than ever, as if her body was revved up for sex and couldn't shut down. She had pulled her bound hands down so that her head was tipped to one side and resting it on an arm. Her face was scrunched up, as if she were consciously withdrawing some invisible part of her within her mind. But her cunt dripped even more, and he was able to shove deeper and deeper.

“Think you like this more than you're letting on,” he whispered into her ear, and she turned and buried her face in her arms even more. “Your body was pretty much ready to fuck anything tonight, wasn't it? Didn't have to be your doomed lover at all. Look at him,” Sam added as a perverse afterthought. “He's just kind of staring at you, right there on your wedding bed, while you enjoy someone else.”

The elf kept her eyes closed, and didn't say a word. She didn't utter a sound for the few minutes he took to finish, not one moan, let alone begging for clemency. And when he was done, in those precious seconds in which he was distracted and still clutching that sleek hair, when his entire weight had her pinned down enough so surely she could barely move, she still managed to wrench her tied hands around and tried to gouge his eyes out.

Sam shoved off her with a yelp. “You are really being a bitch, you know that?” he said, still panting hard. “Tell me why I shouldn't put a bullet in your brain.”

“You came here to put a bullet in my brain, and everyone I love. Don't let your precious quest fail now.”

Despite the tape, she rolled herself over and willed herself to sit up. The black hair cascaded over her body like a flimsy shield, and she stared at him with those steely eyes, chin up, waiting patiently for the final blow.

“Tell me,” Sam said, “is it true that your kind dies when raped? 'Cause you don't seem to be the type to curl up in a wimpering ball and wither away.”

“I wouldn't know. I have yet to die.”

“Eh, dying's not so bad,” he said, and reached over and once more clocked her directly on the wound on her head. At last, she fell over next to her lover with the glassy eyes of unconsciousness.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Later Dean would blame his distraction for the fact that they almost got killed by a pregnant girl. The damnable Trial gone wrong was on his mind as they finally pulled up to the Bunker after pushing through a swing shift of driving. Sam's condition hadn't improved despite large stretches of sleeping overnight. The wall in his mind still seemed intact, for he still didn't remember hell or most of his Zombie Year walking around without a soul, and thank God for small favors. But his spirit – that part of Sam that was back, his animating conscious – seemed to be taking yet another hit, far beyond the effort exerted to cut the throat of a hellhound, as laborious as that was. Like Kevin, exposure to this angel/horseman/Word-of-God level shit appeared to be degrading him from the inside, both body and soul, a fact that Dean could do nothing about and made him want to punch right through the steering wheel.

His brother shouldn't have been the one. And while Dean had long ago given up railing against the unfairness of the universe, this one really burned the balls. How was his brother, who was tenuously hanging onto sanity by a paper-thin “wall” sparing him from a literal personal Hell, supposed to muster up the energy to complete two more universe-defying Trials? How could this end in any way but Sam's shattered soul bleeding out? And yet they couldn't take it back. Once begun, the Trials had to be followed through to whatever bitter end.

So when they drove up to the Bunker's front door in an October Kansas first snow, nothing pinged on Dean's demondar as hunting them. The 1930s apparently lacked automatic garage door openers, a disappointing magical oversight. You had to get out, use the enchanted key and open the garage from the inside. The snow was the rain-spit kind, enough to coat everything with an icy sheen and make even the gravel trailing up to the front door slicker than hell. Dean and Sam both lumbered out of the car, Sam wobbling unsteadily up the path. Dean hoped a day in a proper bed, maybe some food, and he'd be more up and about.

The figure must have jumped down twenty feet off the slope abutting the power plant to land right behind them. Dean heard it rather than seeing anything, and swung around on instinct to grab the thing's arm, just as it was raising a gleaming knife to Sam's throat. It took Dean a second to recognize that the creature attacking them appeared to be a freakishly tall woman, easily his own height or more, with a jutting round belly that could only mean one thing. Dean managed to get a hold of the woman's wrist enough to wrestle the knife – small sword, really – out of her hand, but like a sprite she jumped out the range of his restraining grip.

“Dude! A little help with the Amazon here.”

Sam turned around to face them, hopelessly slow to Dean's annoyance. His eyes bugged out as he focused on the woman's face, and then with a little gasp, fainted straight to the slushy ground.

“You've got to be fucking kidding me,” Dean muttered. Even the pissed off pregnant girl looked surprised at Sam's collapse, and she took turns giving lethal glances at both his limp body and Dean, obviously weighing what to do next. Whatever her beef was, the attack was clearly premeditated, not some hotheaded gesture. Dean took a step between her and his brother's inert form, in case she tried to rush him again and kill with her bare hands.

“What are you?” she asked after a few seconds.

“That's my line, sister.” At her uncomprehending glare, he added, “How about we all calm down here, and you tell me what _you_ are first.” Not a hundred percent human, he was getting that.

The woman ignored him, and crouched down to examine Sam from her position a few paces away. Dean was a little amazed she could balance on the her heels with a belly like that. “Why is the orc so weak? This situation doesn't concern you, replicant. You don't know what he's done.”

“Yeah, I'm getting that.” He held up his free hand, palm up in a hopefully calming _stop_ gesture, and then tossed the sword over to the side away from her. “Why don't we start with names. I'm Dean, and Sam here's my brother. So it _is_ my business that you've really got hard-on to put a knife in him.”

“Your brother? Your brother committed heinous crimes against me and my kin. Your brother isn't even human. Your brother, through some dark art, does not have a soul, and is a vile corrupted blight upon the land.”

“You know about the soul thing, huh. Well, I hate to ruin a good revenge rage, but Sam's soul is back. Human all over again. So how about we talk about this before getting to the stabby bits, okay? What's your name?”

“Miriel. The name she gave me was Miriel.” The words came not from the girl, but from Sam behind him on the ground. He'd woken up, and behind the eyes and his voice lay an ungraspable pain. In that second, Dean understood that a piece of the wall had fallen. He wasn't a convulsing mess, so presumably the memory recovered was just from blank-Sam days, not the Box.

“You okay, Sam?”

“No.” Sam sat up, though, and seemed to not be crazy or dying, so that was a plus. “I only remember a little, but I am so so sorr...”

“What are you?” she interrupted, repeating the earlier question. “What are you both?” Her eyes were cold, unmoved.

“I don't know. I never knew why Dean looks like your husband,” – Dean let out a little huff at that – “but I'm not what I was before.”

“That much is clear.” She stood up with more uncanny grace. Dean couldn't help but do the silent math on the belly. Hadn't it been more than nine months since Sam had been resouled? Maybe it was just a coincidence. A highly unfortunate, suspicious coincidence. After all, a husband was mentioned.

“It's cold out here,” Sam continued, “even for an elf. Why don't we...”

“Wait, _elf?_ ” Dean said, turning back to the girl. Six feet tall, black dreadlock braids intricately knotted around her head, no pointy ears. Oh, sure, elf. “Aren't you a little tall for a Santa helper?”

“You are confusing us with the faeries again,” she replied, and Dean could practically hear the _foolish human_ in her voice. “They come from another realm, and aren't even of Arda, originally.”

“Good to know. Listen, I need to have some words with my brother here. Stay there. Behave.”

Sam managed to stand up, and Dean dragged him closer to the bunker door, away from avenging chick. “What are you doing, Sam? You're not _inviting her in_ , are you?”

“Well, what are we going to do, Dean, stand around arguing all day in the freezing snow? She's pregnant, she needs shelter, food...”

“...another blade in hand to finish the job. Oh yeah, let's roll out the welcome wagon for the homicidal monster into our secret lair filled with weapons and wards, where if we die, no one will find our bones for decades. Great plan, Sam.”

“She's not a monster. She has every right to be angry. You don't know what I did, Dean, I...” He cut off, choking, then started up again. “If you were in her place, you'd slice my throat without a second glance. Oh, and by the way, she can hear every word we are saying.”

“I have no desire to be imprisoned in your underground hole,” Miriel's voice said. Right behind Dean, and he jumped. In the space of five seconds she'd recovered the blade and snuck up behind them, with not even footprints in the snow. The sword was neatly put away in a scabbard attached to her back, so at least she wasn't planning on lunging for them right away.

“Nobody's getting locked up. Give her the key, Dean.”

“What?” said Miriel.

“What? No.” said Dean. “Random crazy baby-mamas showing up is what motels were invented for.”

“We need to talk, and she needs to trust us. Would you trust me too?” Sam grabbed the stone box out of Dean's pocket, over his astonished face. “This is our only key to this facility. It'll open every door here. Please, let's just get in out of the cold. You can always change your mind and leave.”

“Why should I believe you?”

Sam opened his arms wide. “You don't have any reason to believe me. Except that the Sam you met wouldn't even give you the choice, would he? He'd have attacked you the second you showed up with a knife, and cut that baby out without a second glance.”

Dean sucked in a breath at the harsh words. “Geez, Sam, don't you think that's...”

“It's true,” Miriel interrupted. She reached out for the box and plucked it from Sam's fingers, without touching him. “I will talk, to determine if you are the same creature or not. But I will not rescind my vow. The front door stays open for now. Do you agree?”

Sam nodded.

Miriel made them walk first through the door, in front of her at a distance, leaving the car out in the thickening snow.

 

* * * * *

 

The front entrance came into a small hallway, which terminated at the sitting room and library. They'd only discovered the bunker about two months prior, and it still felt like walking into hunter Disneyland to Dean, one that somehow could be construed as _home._ They hadn't even begun to comb through the voluminous archives, which now also contained the collected works of several hunters that had died recently. Rufus. Samuel and company. Bobby.

And now contained one elf as well.

Sam flicked on the lights and sat down first, at the furthest end of the room, as a gesture of goodwill. Dean could tell his brother was barely holding it together. _Don't scratch the wall, Sam._ Her presence was like an infected wound inflicting pressure on that wall. The woman seemed to prefer to lurk as close to the exit as possible, so Dean positioned himself as a buffer between Sam and her. They both looked like they'd be perfectly okay with fleeing in the opposite direction and never laying eyes on one another again.

“So,” said Dean, deciding to cut to the chase. “Is the baby Sam's?”

Sam's eyes bugged out of his head in his traditional _really Dean?_ expression. Miriel, though, seemed nonplussed. “Yes. Perhaps you would prefer your brother to explain the situation to you without me here?”

“Mmm, think I got the picture, based on your whole vengeance schtick. You were not one of robo-Sam's more willing partners, were you?”

“You could say that, if by 'not willing', you mean imprisoned and tortured for half a year.”

Dean frowned at that, although he tried to hide the extent of his shock. _Half a year?_ What was Samuel doing about it all that time? Did he know about the anti-Sam's extracurricular activities?

“Look, I'm sorry that happened to you, but you've got to know that wasn't really Sam. It just _looked_ like Sam. He's not a threat to anyone with his soul back.”

“Anyone? What about the creatures you hunt, they are not considered anyone? Isn't this whole building a monument to destroying that which you do not understand?” She waved around her at the anti-possession sigils on the walls and floors.

“I understand that monsters hurt people. We just try to prevent more people from being hurt.”

“I am a person,” Miriel said quietly, “and I was hurt by him. Do I get to hunt the monster that hurt me?”

Dean could sense he was losing the battle of logic. “But without his soul it wasn't really _him._ Philosophy major, you wanna back me up here?”

Sam leaned forward with cautious eyes. “Miriel,” he started – and use of the name itself caused her to jump back. “Your people had a strong idea of the soul, right? I think I remember that. The fea, I think it was?”

Miriel nodded, wary. “Fëa,” she corrected, although Dean could hardly hear the pronunciation difference.

“And although your bodies are very strong, if the body and soul are separated, the soul is still considered to be the fundamental person?”

“Yes. But if the fëa flees the hröa, the body left behind is not animated. It may be preserved, but it does not walk and talk and make decisions.”

“Right. But what if the brain, with all its memories, were preserved too? So that that body could walk and talk. You know this is what happened. You called me an orc and said yourself that I did not have a soul.”

“The orcs were a long time ago. They were created through the dark arts of the corrupted Valar. Only they can make something new, or corrupt a being's very nature.”

“Something like that happened here. We still don't know how my body was rescued from the Box, while the soul was left behind. But it happened, and now I _back,_ and up until a few minutes ago I didn't even remember what happened to you. Should I be killed for something that didn't happen on my watch? Maybe the creature that hurt you is already dead.”

“I will consider your words. Outside. You two will remain here while I contemplate it.” And with that she hopped up o the balls of her feet and walked back out the door, their only magic key in hand.

“We didn't just give away the bunker to a pregnant elf, did we?” Dean asked.

“We'll figure out a way to prop the door open, in the worst case scenario. But I'd guess she'll be back. Just a feeling, from the way she looked at you.”

“A baby, Sam… what the fuck happened?”

“The other me got obsessed, I think. I remember the beginning more than the end.”

“What did you mean, I looked like her husband?” Dean knew he should leave it alone, not poke at the wall, but damn if both of their behavior wasn't peculiar.

“The Campbells led a raid on her tribe. This big organized thing, with outsiders along. They thought they were a type of fairy, looking for the alpha, you know. We interrupted a party, a wedding. Miriel was the bride. I shot the groom right there in front of her in their wedding tent.”

Sam recited all that without breaking down, but now he flipped his hair back with a sigh of exhaustion. “Don't bother her if she comes back. Just let her stay. If she wants. You can't imagine what I owe her. I don't really care if she still wants to come after me. Like I said, if you were her, you'd cut my throat too.”

Sam got up to head back to his room, to sleep. Dean sat and waited for the girl to return, the cold draft from the open front door blowing over him, a perfect reflection of his fear.

* * * * *

The girl did return, over two hours later and after dark. The weather had turned actively stormy outside, the first one of the season, and Dean was relieved that she hadn't tried to linger outdoors.

Miriel closed the front door behind her and placed the key in front of Dean. “You are alone?”

“Sam went to bed. We're working on something that, uh, saps the strength. Another reason not to attack him, Miriel. We have the possibility of doing a whole lot of good in one fell swoop here.”

She just stared at him with her pale eyes. She should be wet, he noted, but somehow wasn't. “Do you have any food in here?”

“Yeah. Sure. Thinking about making a sandwich anyway.”

He padded to kitchen around the corner from the library, and she followed. “Been gone over a week so we don't have much in the fridge. Grilled cheese okay?” An old standby, with canned tomato soup. He'd made the same meal over and over for Sam back when they were kids, only usually with shelf-stable Velveeta and a microwave. Which came out as craptacular as it sounded, but now he had a real kitchen to cook in.

“You are a warrior, yes?” she asked, as he futzed around the stove. “A hunter, you say.”

“I don't know about warrior, but yeah.”

“Would you hunt me and my kind, since we are not human?”

“I don't know. You look human, but then so do a lot of the monsters we hunt. But Sam says you're harmless, plus, you know...” He made a rounded hill motion over his abdomen, and she smiled.

“Ah, so carrying a child elicits sympathy. Even though, logically, that only results in more monsters in the world.”

“Even I won't pull the trigger on a baby. Here you go.”

He dropped the sandwich in front of her with a flourish. Miriel gave it a sniff and then a cautious nibble. “Not bad,” she admitted. Dean gave her a thumbs up and tore into his own.

“So what's your plan?” he asked, after getting down a few bites. “You got a place to go?”

“I'm still thinking about it. I will stay here in the interim. There is plenty of room in the building for the three of us.”

“Mmm-hmm. Knock yourself out. I'm under orders to tell you to make yourself at home.”

Dean planned to put a lock on a few key doors, just in case. Weapons, dangerous spells, Sam's room, their interrogation area in Room Seven. He wondered what she was really after, and why she didn't leave and try to find her own people again. Why hang out with people you hate? But still, it was Sam's baby, and he wouldn't be the one to turn away family. Not even half-alien family.

* * * * *

Dean was sound asleep, as sound as his restless mind would let him, and dreaming. The dream had an edge to it, as they so often did, menacing and fervid to roll over into something malevolent. Then some light touched him, and the dream shifted in an instant to joy and comfort. Somehow even in the dreaming state, Dean knew it came from outside him.

He opened his eyes, and a soft hand was stroking his forehead. Without thinking Dean reached for the knife under his pillow and swung it straight at the phantom's face. An inch before the target he recognized her, and barely managed to pull back.

“The _fuck,”_ he said, jerking away. “Do you have a death wish or something?”

“No. I knew you had the reflexes to stop yourself. Otherwise I would have moved out of the way.” Miriel had moved an armchair all the way next to his bed. Dean couldn't conceive how an ungainly yet waify pregnant lady had gotten it in there without waking him up. And he couldn't help noticing that she still had the sword strapped to her back.

“What are you doing in here? Didn't anyone ever teach you it's considered rude to barge into someone's bedroom. Pri...vate...space,” he said, waving a finger around at the room.

“We do have customs around private areas, yes. But you were unconscious, so I couldn't announce my arrival, correct? We don't sleep, so I enjoyed watching you.”

“Well that's not creepy or anything,” Dean muttered. “Next time, just wake me up, okay?”

“If that's what you wish. Do you always sleep with a lamp and all your clothes on?”

“I just drifted off, no big deal.” Although in truth, he drifted off without properly going to bed every night. At Lisa's he'd finally broken the habit of sleeping with his clothes on, but now it was slowly creeping back. “Why did you change the dream?”

“Did you notice it change?” Miriel asked, delighted. “You did seem distressed, so I soothed you.”

“Okay, leave the 'soothing' thing at the door too, would you? Seriously, why are you in here? Not just to watch me sleep.”

Miriel tipped he head to the side just a tiny bit, evaluating him. “I have a proposal for you. No, a request.”

“Okaaaay. This couldn't wait until morning?”

“I require something for the child. She is physically part-human, but certain… energies were lacking at her conception. I ask your help to replace those energies. A human would be best.”

“She? It's a girl?” He reached out towards the swollen stomach, then pulled back before making contact. “I can't believe Sam's having a little girl.”

“Sam isn't having anything. _I_ have been gifted the child, and I am asking for your help, not his.”

A gift. Either Miriel was the most magnanimous person on Earth, or elves were epicly delusional. “What exactly are you asking me?” Blood magic? A sacrifice? He'd been hanging out with too many monsters.

“Take off your shirt and go back to sleep with me lying next to you.”

Dean blinked. “That's...” _Weird? Bound to be a trap? Too intimate to contemplate? Weird?_ “...it?”

“That's it.”

“You're saying a couple hours of snuggle time will help the baby.”

“No. It will need to be done every night until the birth to have the intended effect.”

Dean blinked again. Miriel ran a finger along the embroidered hem of the linen dress she was wearing. Patient, not pleading.

“Yeah, you're gonna have to keep going to convince me that this is a remotely not-insane idea. What's the intended effect?”

“Among my people, when a child is conceived, part of the spirit of both parents goes into the new life. That did not happen here.”

“Ah, 'cause Sam didn't have a soul.”

“Yes. She is part human, her fëa should also have that contribution.”

“So this is like some succubus thing where you want to steal some of _my_ soul instead?”

Miriel dropped her hands and leaned forward on the bed, angry all of a sudden. “I cannot _steal._ I cannot _take._ Why is everything about force for your people? It must be given freely, through love of the new child. When a father loves his son, is the father diminished?”

“What happens if I say no? You weren't planning on staying here, Miriel. You were going to kill Sam and go on your merry way. What's the backup plan?”

“Part of my spirit has already been consumed. This mother-name is coming to pass, although I gave it to the orc with a different purpose in mind. I would manage without you, but it would be healthier for the child to do this.”

“Mother name?”

“I have several names. Never mind, perhaps I can tell you the tale of the first Míriel later. Do you agree? Or is there some other objection? Do you wish to help your kin or not?”

“What about Sam?” Dean asked quietly. “He has his soul back now, you can't you do this touchie-feelie thing with the actual father? I know it probably brings back bad memories, but...”

“ _No!”_ hissed Miriel. “I will not. I will not touch that body again, no matter the battered state of its soul, unless it is to fulfill my vow to draw a blade across his neck. It is you or nothing. I choose you.”

Dean thought about it a few seconds, then finally nodded. Enough talk, it was three in the morning. What harm was there in sleeping next to her, if she specifically asked him? He couldn't blame her for wanting to avoid Sam. His brother had no moral say here, no rights or authority of any kind. They'd be lucky if she let him get to know his daughter at all.

He shrugged the flannel off his shoulders, peeled off his undershirt and threw it all into a corner, then crawled under the sheets into bed proper. Miriel pushed herself out of the chair, shoving it backwards on the way up, and walked around to the other side of the bed to flick off the lamp. For an instant the plunge into pitch darkness caused a wave of fear to pass through Dean, before he regained control of his treacherous emotions. Then the bunker's soft glowlights embedded low in walls began to faintly emit, and he could make out Miriel dropping her dress to the floor. Skin contact. Right.

She dropped something on the floor under the bed – the two knives, he decided – and climbed into bed next to him. Dean was on his back staring at the invisible ceiling wondering what was appropriate to do. She solved the dilemma by moving his arm herself and curling up next to his chest. He could feel her breasts against his side, and the huge stomach pressing against his hip at the edge of his jeans. Since non-sexual touching seemed to be okay, he indulged his curiosity and rested his palm on the mass. The belly was silky smooth and warmer than his hand, and firmer under his fingers than he expected. More like a tire than a balloon. He couldn't detect any movement but her breathing.

“About how long until the birth?” Dean asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Seven weeks. At the darkest part of the year, on this half of the world.”

“I don't feel anything unusual. Should some magic mojo be happening?”

Miriel laughed softly and ran her hand from his chest up to his neck, and then further up to his face. Dean was suddenly hit with the same mellowed sense of well-being from the earlier interrupted dream. The touch alone would be soothing – it had been, what, the better part of a year since he'd left Lisa in the lurch? – but this was more exhaustive than that, as if a deep portion of his soul was comforted.

“Sleep, human, and I will keep watch.”

“Watch for what?” he murmured, as his eyelids drifted down.

“Whatever it is that haunts you. Go to sleep.”


	3. Chapter 3

Sam had to haul the elf's immobilized body and his loot over twenty miles of rugged terrain, and he still couldn't articulate why he was doing it. The signal had gone out to reconvene in the woods for coordinated mopping up, which would take at least a day, but by then Sam had already taken off. Forget the mission; the elves were stealthy enough to dissolve into the woods, and whoever was stunned in the initial surprise was who they were going to get. So Sam impulsively decided to ditch the futile chase and get back to the vehicles first, in order to hide the girl better without anyone the wiser. Even though it was their mission to capture alive a few of the fair creatures, Sam wanted to keep her all to himself.

He made it back to the old road by mid-afternoon, by far the first. Samuel would just assume he was dead, until Sam mysteriously showed up again at the compound. Sam's plan was basic obfuscation: Hunters come and go, confusion of war, blah blah blah. He wasn't one of the military dudes, so no one was watching him that closely. No one would care, either.

Sam set her down by the last jeep and ripped the hood off her head for the first time since the tent. He'd retaped her – arms behind her back this time – and wrapped her nude body up burrito-style in a silk-like coverlet from the bed, then taped that up too. Carrying her all that way turned out to be a euphoric adrenaline-busting exercise. How much did she weigh? One fifty? Not bad.

“What's your name?” Sam asked, as the elf squinted in the midday sun. “Oh, wait, this'll probably help.” He ripped the duct tape off her mouth, taking some stray strands of black hair with it. The long loose hair was everywhere, shimmering like a liquid all around her shoulders without the hood.

“Name, chica. What do you want me to call you? Could be together for quite awhile at the rate we're going, or at least until I get bored. Gotta call you something.”

She stared beyond him at the woods, ignoring him. Listening, maybe, for any signs of her tribe. As a punishment he grabbed some of those soft locks and yanked her back to force her to look at him. “Nothing is not the right answer. Wrong answers have consequences.”

Sam pulled out a dagger and roughly cut off a hunk of hair at the shoulder level and let the strands blow into the road. _That_ got a response, a strangled cry of anger. Then: “You may call me Miriel, you disgusting destructor.”

“I'm hurt, really.” He hacked off another fistful of hair just for spite. “Miriel. That your real name? Tell me the truth now. Sounds like something the angels would call themselves.”

“It is one of the names I was given as a child. The beings that you call angels may use it too, I do not know. I doubt you know them, either.”

“Oh, you'd be surprised. Angels have been slumming it quite a bit lately.”

“What are you planning to do with me, vile creature? Why not kill this body and be done?”

“I'm not done having my fun yet. Not everyday you get your very own beautiful immortal as a plaything. I guess the rumors of your … sensitivity… were exaggerated. Shouldn't you be dead from soulsickness or something by now?”

She looked away in contempt, but also with fear in her eyes. Perhaps the good Miriel was as surprised as Sam that she was still alive. “The body can be harmed, but what you call the soul cannot. I could choose to leave this body, if I desired it enough. But it would be a very long time before I might be granted another, and I enjoy life with it. Even after this terrible day.”

“Hmm.” He ran the flat of the pocketknife over her face, close to the hair spikes but not cutting anything. Out in the sunlight he could see she really had a lovely face, aesthetically speaking. Sam thought it might be pale and sickly compared to that mess of dark hair, but no, her skin was rich and alive. “You know what I think? I think you want me to make the decision for you. Cut your throat or stab you, and take away the dilemma of giving up an immortal body or enduring more pain. But I'm not going to make it easy like that for you. I want to know: how much is too much? How much until you beg to die, and flee from your damaged body like a rat scurrying off a sinking ship?”

Sam wanted to drive the knife in right there, make her suffer immediately. She had such bold words, were they all blustering bullshit, or was she as strong as she seemed? But he was still too exposed here, in a foreign country, with an unauthorized captive who was not properly secured and who was surrounded by tempting escape routes should she come unbound. He decided to wait until he had her locked up before testing her out, and away from the prying eyes of the Campbells and their military liaisons.

He knew just the place to go.

* * * * *

The cabin was only an hour from the Campbell base, back on the Michigan side of the border. Externally it looked like any other dumpy hunter waystop, but internally it contained an iron-and-concrete cage within a cage. Christian and Gwen had built it months ago for the temporary placement of captured monsters, but now they had the Lansing warehouse outfitted as a superior storage facility, so the cabin was unlikely to see any traffic for the few days Sam planned to use it. If the girl lasted even a week, Sam would be impressed.

They arrived well into the night, almost 24 hours since the raid. Sam estimated it'd be another day at least before Samuel et al straggled down from Canada, so he could make a run to the compound for advanced supplies. He hadn't fed the girl, or given her anything to drink, or hardly seen her twitch a muscle; she didn't even bother with the old need-to-pee trick to get him to let her loose. Sam had pulled over to slap her a few times just to make sure she was still alive, and never did take her by surprise. The elf was waiting, resting, listening, biding her time.

Once inside, Sam set up the exam table. The cage effectively had two rooms, one mostly bare with chain hooks embedded in the walls and floors plus a crude toilet, and the next to it a bit bigger room for torture. Christian had somehow located a hulking stainless steel table with a six-inch lip, used for autopsies or veterinary large-animal surgeries or some such, and welded on restraint D-rings at various locations for differently-sized creatures. They had attachments, too, like the polyethylene cover so the whole table wouldn't turn into a shock zone if they used the paddles. The thing even had drainage in the middle for blood; it was gloriously versatile, as far as Sam was concerned. He dumped Miriel on her side right on top of the drain grill cover, and set about chaining her down. 

And the second the tape was cut on her ankles, she kicked him straight in the teeth.

It was well-aimed and timed to the point Sam suspected she could see through the bag over her head. Or he would suspect if he weren't clutching a gushing lip. She rolled over the edge of the table, and with a roar rushed in his general direction, apparently on the theory that incapacitating him would be her only hope of buying enough time to get herself free. But the initial blow wasn't enough to stun him, so Sam was able to swivel to one side and grab her bound arms from the back.

“God, you are trouble,” Sam said. Now she was trying to blindly run, so he grabbed her close so she wouldn't ram the bars of the cage. “Do you _want_ me to slam your head yet again? We need to come up with a better method of sedation, really. You can't see. Your arms are restrained. You're already locked inside a nicely built prison with three inch steel bars, with me. Do you really want to keep pissing me off with these annoying little antics? Go ahead, say yes.”

She froze as he breathed on her neck through the sheet, then crumpled to the floor like a tantruming two-year-old. Sam had hauled her ass for miles, though; getting her limp resistant form up four feet onto a table posed no trouble. She resumed kicking as soon as he lifted her up, a bit more desperate and random now, which was admittedly annoying. Finally he got her face down over the lip of the table, and opted to climb up there and sit on her legs until the ankles were good and chained. She gave it up at that point, with her muffled nose buried in the drain and her breathing gulps of air.

Sam swiveled around so he was sitting on her ass facing her defeated head. “Too muck work, Miriel. I'll never let you out of these restraints if all I'm going to get out of it is a literal heel to the mouth.” He lifted up her bound hands away from her back, pulling the arm sockets to their obvious limit until she cried out. “So when I undo these hands, you will let me lock each of them up, quietly, or I will break your arms and chop them off for my trouble. Got a bone saw just outside the door, no kidding.”

He sliced open the duct tape and Miriel's hands fell limp to her bare back. Sam stretched her arms out far over the sides of the table so upwards pressure was maintained on shoulders, and secured down the wrists. He leaned forward to whisper in her ear, even though his weight probably put uncomfortable pressure on the arms. “See, not so difficult. But you gave me enough trouble that you owe me. Let's have a look at this jewelry, shall we? I already got you boyfriend's, but I haven't had time to get a good look at them yet.”

She sucked in a gasp and let out a meek, “No. Please don't.”

At that Sam laughed. “Really, threatening amputation doesn't get a peep, but with the rings I get begging? What makes them so valuable?”

“They are just metal to you, no value. They are … ceremonial.”

“Hey, I wouldn't say gold has no value. Say goodbye to your costumes. Not like you'll need them in the future anyway.”

Sam climbed off the table and extracted all ten rings, one on each finger. Like the ones from the male, each was made of a different shade of alloy, with intricate engraved geometric designs and few stones or jewels. Now in decent light he noticed that the insides had minuscule forms etched in them as well. Some kind of language.

“What's this writing say?” he asked. The military dossier on the elves hadn't mentioned a written language. He'd assumed they were more or less pretty pre-literate hunter-gatherers.

“They are my family names,” she said, sounding distraught. “Parents, grandparents, personal names. My marriage rings. Some have their former lives too, but this is my first.”

“Nice. I'm sure they'll fetch a decent price.”

Within her hood, Miriel wailed again. Or perhaps not a wail, but a sobbing _song._ Like a melancholic prayer of mourning. For _jewelry._ He couldn't understand it.

Sam left her there, head still bound up, while he ran to the Campbell base for supplies. Not that he couldn't get her to stop, but somehow the song made him lack the energy for damage control, even though the melody made him feel nothing. No remorse or guilt, no sadness, but no real fun in it, either. He tossed her rings in with the others and plopped the whole bag in a cabinet outside the cage. A nice nest egg if he ever needed it, but right now fencing the loot was low on his priority list.

When he returned, he could still hear some of the singing, but she cut off as she heard him enter. At last he pulled off her hood and let her have a look around, from what little she could see with her face half down in a shallow metal tub.

“Now. Let's see what sort of monster you really are,” he said.

Sam started with the standard fae lore. Iron cuts on her back: No effect but normal bleeding. Silver: No effect, although that was unsurprising given that she was wearing silver rings. Steel, ditto. Milk, saffron and beer didn't interest her. Garlic she sniffed at and shrugged. Sam even tried tossing some salt under her nose for her to count, which earned him a contemptuous stare.

So, probably not a fairy after all. At least not the usual Western European types, although she didn't fit the physical description in the lore in any case. She had been telling the truth. So then he started in on other well-known monster legends, particularly those characteristics common to multiple types. Dead man's blood: Sam injected it near the shoulder blade and it swelled up into a bruise, and then faded, as if her body devoured the foreign substance. Blades forged in virginal blood, or demon blood, or good 'ol child sacrifice blood: Nada but scratches, which healed up within hours, as if she'd never had a mark on that smooth back. Salt rubbed in a wound got a little moan, but no magical reaction. Holy water ran off her. Crucifixes she looked at curiously. The bone of a lesser saint he stuffed in her mouth got spit out, but it didn't burn or smoke. Sam carved some sigils into her back – your basic magic square, the Enochian anti-angel sign – and all that produced was thick blood that stopped oozing within a second.

She had no physical signs of the supernatural besides an unusual ability to heal.

Round two, after running out for lunch, he decided to try out magic. Maybe they were a kind of witch that had somehow forgotten they were witches? Or an unusual form of possession that preserved human bodies?

He tried psalms and prayers, and all she did was listen intently and then mock his singing. He tried – with trepidation – the Latin exorcism rites, and she snorted and recited it back at him. He tried to hex her, and the spell seemed to bounce right off.

“You know,” Sam said after a few futile hours, “you weren't kidding when you said there wasn't an elvish alpha, were you?” The symbols hacked into her back were already fading under the dried blood.

“No. I remember now the tales of what you are talking about. The root ancestors of the corrupted interlopers that flock this planet. Every kind has one, according to you?”

“So they're real? Independent confirmation that Samuel or whoever isn't just barking up a mad tree?”

“The world is full of stories. Who is your alpha, depraved one? Do you even know you aren't human anymore?”

“Yup. I know. You're a mystery, I'm a mystery, everybody's a mystery.”

“I know what I am.”

“Really? You want to clue me in here, because as far as I can tell, you're not a monster at all.”

She bitterly laughed. “What's a monster? Did it ever occur to you that maybe there are beings who have a right to share this land just as much as humans?”

“Honestly, no. Kill or be killed, the story of my life, and the story of my species. Although I can remember a time when I would have agreed with you.”

“We were here before you, and we will be here long after the last human has turned to dust and departed forever.”

“Really. Your bodies too, or just your 'houseless' souls?” At her silence, he poked one of the wounds on her back for emphasis. “You're like ghosts with nowhere to go. Doomed to be trapped on the Earth forever.”

“The Earth has hidden places for us. The fading doesn't harm you, and doesn't concern you.”

Without warning, he dug his nails into the center of the Enochian signal, and ripped the flesh. She screamed at that, the first proper scream in hours, and he smiled.

“Why don't you go there, then. Show me how you leave this body. Show me the way to the hidden places. Show me what you really are under this pretty flesh.”

“No,” she gasped out. “I will not.”

* * * * *

Eventually Sam grew bored with his science experiments, and dragged her over to the permanent housing side of the cage for the night. He deliberately didn't chain her up, but instead rigged up an RF signal from the cameras right outside the cage so he could monitor her from the car. Sam was curious whether the elf's behavior when she thought she was alone would reveal anything about her abilities, weaknesses, or true nature.

Her first actions were to get a drink and use the toilet, which didn't surprise him. Then, before even trying to escape, she spent a good half hour tying her hair back into elaborate braids. The hair must be important to her, a fact he filed away for later. Then she thoroughly explored and tested every square inch of the cage's structure and cement slab floor, probing for weak points. Sam noted she could jump straight up at least five feet, but the search didn't result in any obvious moves to escape. The elf sat down in the center of the space, knees folded under her, and closed her eyes. Sam expected the waterworks to finally begin, as the reality of her captivity set in. But to Sam's surprise, instead she started to sing.

The song was reminiscent of the mourning tune he'd heard earlier, in a sad minor key but slower and more deliberate. It almost sounded like a ritual, looping over and over with complex variations. After about twenty minutes the song shifted to something fast and urgent, and her body swayed and trembled with the song. A full hour after the song began, she shut her mouth to lie down on the cold floor, eyes wide open. Sam could see then that the deep wound he'd inflicted on her back had completely healed. The girl appeared tired, but she didn't sleep.

Neither did Sam of course, not since coming out of the unremembered hell box. He wondered how many times he could inflict the same wound in the same place, before she ran out of mojo to heal it. Surely even the immortal elves had to comply with the third law of thermodynamics, and without food would eventually lose the ability to control their bodies. In the long run she must starve, although Sam guessed that, left alone, she could hold out without food for a spectacular amount of time.

At four am she had been lying on the floor without a twitch for four hours, so he decided to give the wound theory another go before taking off. Samuel had been ringing his phone off the hook since the previous evening, so the morning was probably the time to make an appearance and announce he was still among the living. Sam cautiously walked back into the cage, knife in hand, as quiet as could. Miriel's eyes didn't shift as he entered, nor again as he ever so slowly turned the key in the lock.

But the second it clicked, she pounced. She slammed the door open and shoved him aside, and made a full sprint for the front door.

Which was also steel reinforced and double locked. A cage within a cage.

Sam tackled her just as she was turning her attention to the windows, which were all barred as well. “Fast, elf, but not fast enough.” He curled an entire fist into the long hair left on one side, twisting it as hard as possible to secure his grip. “Come on, back to your new home. The wall this time.”

With massive effort he managed to drag her back into the toilet side of the cage and cuff her wrists to the highest D-rings on the wall, face forward. She still pulled herself up and kicked wildly backwards at him, but it was a hopeless waste of effort. When Sam had all four limbs shackled, he pressed against her to admire that smooth, blemish-free skin.

“Amazing. Too bad I can't bottle this healing ability and sell it. How many times can you do this before the process begins to fail? I mean, if I cut off a limb, it's not going to grow back, is it?”

He ran his palm all down her back, down between the legs. “Not good, all this fighting. I said there would be consequences.” She went limp just before he shoved four fingers into her, dry as bone this time. “Not horny anymore, I see. Yeah, me too. Honestly today I'd rather play with that magic than fuck an unenthusiastic dead fish. Can't tell which would torture you more, though. Maybe one rape's basically like another? Live through one, live through 'em all.”

“You. Talk. Too. Much,” she gritted into at the wall.

“Not really? With my brother, I was always kind of the quieter one. Until I got pissed off.” Sam roughly shoved her forward, squeezing her against the cinderblock wall. “Carving number two, here we go. Feel free to leave at any time.”

Miriel stayed conscious, and in her body, a didn't utter a sound.

 

* * * * *

Sam was wrong. Not only did she survive longer than a week, but it was a full two weeks before the healing began to fail. Every day he made it over at some point to carve something new into the back. The same basic circle, but sometimes it was sigils, sometimes it was a smiley face. Sometimes he barely scratched the surface of the skin, sometimes he gouged deep into the muscle until she could hardly move her legs. He never took any large chucks out, though, or cut quite as far as the spinal cord, figuring that was probably an amputation too far. Mostly he wanted to make her hate her body, and dread his arrival for another energy-sapping, agonizing round.

Finally one night he pulled up, and could see on the cameras even before entering the lines of the Mason triangle he'd hacked out the night before. Sam had withheld water, too, for a couple of days, so maybe that pushed her over to a fully weakened state. Or her magic was ineffective without a good quality voice. Sam had actually played a recording of the regeneration song over another monster he'd hacked up, just to see if it was a generic healing spell. It wasn't.

The elf hung limp in her chains, didn't move or make any effort to hold herself up, so maybe her soul had finally flown the coop? Nope. She woke up when he dumped cold water all over her head. It was the first time he'd seen anything like sleeping though, or perhaps some form of energy-preserving stasis. Definitely weaker.

“What, no singing today? Honey, I am disappointed in your lack of effort.”

“You're wearing this body down,” she rasped, licking the water dripping down her face. “You proved your point, now kill me or let me go.”

“But I want to see you kill _yourself_ , elf. And not the bullet eating kind, leave your body voluntarily. Why do you continue to endure this needless pain, when you could join your loved ones in Val-whasit at any time.”

“This body is mine, not yours. You will be dead a hundred times over before I give it up.”

“Such stupid, brave words.”

This time, he brought out a whip. Samuel had gotten a tip on a boggart over in California, so he was going to have to leave her on her own for a much longer trip than any since Canada. He'd set up the camera feed to compress and email him a file every hour, so when she finally departed, he would have a record. Before that, though, the body needed a final push. Sam was happy to provide.

* * * * *

Two weeks later he returned, and to his amazement she was still alive. Miriel hadn't eaten anything in over a month. Sam had left her with loose chains so she could get water and move a few feet. On day three, she sang the regeneration song again. On day four she used the chain for hours to work loose some bolt on the toilet, and then, with perfect aim, pitched it at the window closest to her bars. The bolt slid between all the reinforcement and shattered a small hole through the window.

Miriel sat staring at the broken window for over a day, apparently listening. And then she began to sing, a completely different song this time. Watching on his laptop, Sam thought it might be some elvish cry for help, but instead something completely different happened. Over the course of the next day, a viney plant began growing through the crack. As the day wore on the fleshy branch grew thicker and thicker, until the window cracked even more. Over the course of the next week, the plant poured into the room, covering the walls and wrapping around the bars on that side of the cage like magic-bean kudzu.

And she began to eat it, and gain strength.

After getting back, Sam entered the cabin with caution. For all he knew she had some other kind of magic rigged up. But no, while it looked like a greenhouse in there, plant was still no match for metal, and she was securely fastened to the floor.

“Been busy, I see. You look healthier. This isn't the outcome I was hoping for after rotting in a cage for a month.”

She didn't reply. So he went in with a knife extended, fully intending to hack both the vine and her pretty limbs to bits. This time when she rushed him, it wasn't to directly knock him down or escape. Miriel wrapped the stretchy plant around his neck, and attempted to squeeze. Sam slashed back with knife in frantic swipes. She was able to choke him a full ten seconds before he got her deep in the shoulder, and she let go of the homemade rope with a cry.

“What will it take to break you?” he gasped, after freeing his throat. “Let's try this on _you_ and see how you feel.” Sam used the rope to bind her wrists together, and her neck to the bars of the cage, and after she lost consciousness and woke up again, proceeded to beat her until every part of her body swelled up. She was so warm and alive all over again, it was amply satisfying to lay a hand on her and grind her to a pulp.

After that, Sam used a flamethrower on the land all around the cabin to sterilize the soil, and replaced the window with plexiglass. And he didn't come back another month.

* * * * *

He didn't even check on her via the camera for weeks. But finally the anger faded and curiosity got the best of him, so after another bag mission he swung by to see if Miriel had finally given up. It turned out she hadn't, but she was the closest to death he had seen her yet.

The body had healed again, but now Miriel was notably thinner and losing muscle mass. She was curled up on her side, eyes closed and shut down, skin cold and breathing sluggish. When Sam entered and she opened her eyes, she actually looked relieved, like she knew another beating would push her over to death. He crouched next to her in the cage, and for once she didn't feistily resist.

“How long did it take to heal?” he asked softly. Sam knew there had been broken bones in there. It must have been agonizing.

“Weeks,” she whispered.

“Time to go now.” But after the words left him, she weakly rolled away, unwilling to meet his gaze. Sam pulled her back and forced her to look at him. “You've tried, haven't you? You tried to leave your body, and it didn't work.”

“Leave me, please.” Whispers, still. “The body will sever soon, even if the soul cannot.”

“You can't leave,” he repeated, amazed. “You're bound to me somehow, and I won't let you leave.”

For the first and last time, Sam saw tears well up in her eyes. The closest to broken he had ever pushed her.

He got up and made up a sugar water solution, and slowly forced her to come back to health.


	4. Chapter 4

A week after Miriel showed up, the three residents of the bunker fell into a bizarre routine. It was as if they were in a holding pattern, everyone precariously balanced and waiting for something to tip. Sam rested up, and spent most of his waking hours scouring their sources for more scant information about the next Trial, in hopes of giving Kevin a well-deserved break. Miriel seemed to be waiting in stasis for the baby, spending all her nights absorbing Dean's energy – although he didn't feel sucked dry, as she promised – and wandering the woodlots and fields of the cold Kansas land around them during the day.

Dean was going stir-crazy.

Sure, there was research to do and a pregnant woman plus ailing brother to feed. That lasted Dean two days tops before he felt the itch to go somewhere, drive around, _fight_ something. He resisted the urge to scour the local press for supernatural cases, and resisted the greater urge to drive down to Missouri and bug Kevin about the tablet. Nobody _needed_ him right now, except as pillow for an elf at night, and Dean was still skeptical that wasn't her yanking his chain a bit. It was enough to make a person go batty with boredom.

And then on the eighth day, he woke up and Sam was gone.

A short cryptic message on Dean's phone was the only clue to where he'd gone. _I remembered something, Dean._ Well, wasn't that always a promising sign. _I'll be back on Tuesday. Don't worry._ Oh, sure, why would anyone worry about a person with a damaged soul and cracked mind chasing down memories that could crowbar those cracks open? Great, just great.

With Sam gone, though, Miriel's mood did seem lighter. Instead of roaming outside or climbing the rafters or telescope, she hung out inside with him in the library while he tried to find more references to the demon tablet.

“What are you doing all this scholarly reading for, again?” she asked, primping a flower in a pot. Greenery was mysteriously appearing all over the bunker, especially his room and in the library. “Is it not your brother's quest?” Miriel had at least graduated from calling Sam an “orc” up to “your brother”, so that was improvement.

“Sam has to do the actual Trials, but we don't know what the next one is.”

“It is hidden lore.”

“Yeah, that's a good way to put it. A friend of ours has the ability to translate and old … book, but it's been slow-going. And, uh, damaging.”

“The spell is part of the creation of the Maiar. Such abilities are not meant for mortals to use; it will destroy as much as it will create.”

“Yeah, well, Kevin didn't exactly choose to become a prophet. The angels, or God, or whoever, it choose him.”

“Even the Maiar have become corrupted at this late age, that they coerce humans to do their bidding. It is unfortunate. What is the spell for?”

“I wouldn't call it a _spell_ , exactly. But the idea is to close all the gates of hell, so demons can no longer come up to the earth, and souls can't go down either. One less category of monsters crossed off our list.”

“Hell. Demons. This is the realm that haunts you, yes? I see the images in your mind occasionally.”

Dean slammed his current book shut. “You have goddamn _telepathy?_ That was not mentioned as part of my informed consent for this cuddle experiment.”

“It's not deliberate. I cannot rummage through your mind at will. But when you dream, your spirit hovers, and the images come through unbidden. Why does this upset you?”

“It doesn't. I'm fine. Got to work. Shouldn't you be nesting in a pile of leaves or something?”

“If you have been to this hell-realm, why don't you have a wall in your mind?”

“Sam's soul was shredded more than mine. He was there longer, and stuck in the Box with Lucifer and an archangel.”

“More corrupted Maiar? Yes, they could alter his soul. But what about the demons?”

“What about 'em?”

“I thought the demons were debased human souls. Why didn't either one of you turn into a demon?”

“Souls of steel? I don't know, Miriel.”

“The marred earth is indeed very strange.”

“What about these orcs you sometimes talk about? Another type of demon?”

“Ah, no. They have a different story. Would you like to hear it?”

“Sure, why not. My eyes are glazing over anyway.”

They both settled back in their chairs, Miriel with her hands over her belly. She had some kind of home-spun pillow she leaned on in these hard wood chairs.

“Many thousands of years ago, after humans had been sung about but before they ever existed, the first Elves woke up by a large lake. It was night, and the first thing they saw was the stars.”

“Let me guess, the next thing was, 'Let there be light'?”

“No, that was later,” Miriel said, amused. “And only a few of them saw the famed and addictive first light, but that's another story. In this story, many of the elves are wanderers and follow the stars far away from the lake. Unfortunately, the further they wander, the deeper into danger they went. For even at that early age, corners of Arda were defiled and corrupted. Deep, dark places. And the dark creatures cannot stand the fair, and always seek to corrupt them. So some of the wandering Elves were taken, even though they were little more than children who had barely learned to speak, and they were thrown underground, far away from kin and the stars themselves.”

“Still sounds like hell,” Dean said.

“Not exactly. For because they were still Elves, and still themselves, the dark creatures could not fundamentally change their souls. All they could do was torture their bodies until the souls departed on their own. But through dark magic, their bodies did not die. Instead they were turned into vile, clever animals with the faintest memories of their old language. Animated, but without sentient souls.”

“Ah, Robo-elves.”

“Enslaved animals, bred for many foul purposes. Later they were even crossed with mutilated humans. But ever after, a tiny part of them remembered their old free lives, and hated the Elves for what they could not have. Forever they would seek to destroy that last spark of memory. But still, they loved the stars they were born under, and never left the night.”

“That's a nice story. But you left out the important part.”

“What's that?”

“Weaknesses, in cases I ever run across one.”

“Ever the hunter, Dean,” she said, and they both laughed. “You are not likely to find an orc anymore, they were all killed by men and elves long ago. But, just in case... any blow or blade to a vital organ is sufficient. Without a fëa to exert control over the body, they had no special powers of healing or longevity.”

“There you go, that's my girl.”

“Is this the kind of lesson you plan on teaching the child?”

Dean paused, for multiple reasons. One, Miriel had never told him that she planned to stick around around after the baby's birth, although naturally he thought about it. Two, it was getting to be weird how she always referred to the baby as “the child,” as if it were already a separate entity, not inside her.

“Maybe,” he said at last. “Do you think she should know the stories from her father's family as well as her mother's?”

“Stories and action are not the same, although one can lead to another. But yes, she should hear the human stories. Is that what this library is for?”

“Actually, I think the Men of Letters wanted to keep the knowledge in here out of everybody's hands. That's why they hid it away.”

“And do you think that's wise? Do you believe people are safer not knowing about demons and _vampyr_ and the rest, and have to have luck a hunter will find them if they are attacked?”

“Hey, I'm not the one that said the modern world had to abandon superstition and lore. Somebody else made that up, we just have to live with it.”

“Do you? You can't tell the stories yourself?”

 Hard to answer, for what could he say? That people would call them crazy for their claims that monsters and myth were real? Hunters and victims both had been locked up for their insistence on the truth. _He'd_ been locked up for doing his job. But then again, now they had proof. An entire building dedicated to the facts humanity refused to face was now theirs.

"Maybe," Dean said. "We'll see. People like their own stories, you know?" 

"I do know," she replied. 

* * * * *

Sam returned the next day, and for the first time Dean had seen, sought out Miriel. She had a habit of climbing the telescope, and apparently found an engineering alcove up near the thick glass observatory dome to use as her own personal gardening batcave. Sam, looking as grimy as if he had just dug up and smoked some bones, called up to her and asked her to come down.

“I, uh, found some things that belong to you. Other Sam never sold them.” He slid a dirty backpack across one of the library tables towards her. She stared at the bag with wide blank eyes, not glancing at Sam at all. “I'll go.”

Sam swiveled to leave when she spoke up. “Did you destroy that house?”

“Yeah. I burned the cabin down to ash and slag metal.”

“Thank you.”

He nodded curtly, and left. Dean got up to give her some privacy too, but she only waved him to sit back down. “You stay.”

Miriel stared at the bag without moving for over a minute, then began pulling out its contents. A wad of papers and maps, which she tossed aside. A gold-handled dagger embedded with glass or gems. Several necklaces, or long shiny chains embedded with tiny crystals. And a small paper lunch bag, which when she dumped it out turned out to contain about twenty engraved rings of various metals. She slowly slid them around on the table, organizing them, before beginning to put them on.

“These two are my naming rings,” she said, placing them on both of her thumbs. “This one contains my birth name, which my parents agreed to before I emerged in the world. And this, for the right hand, is for given names, which you give yourself or someone close to you sees in prophesy. My mother is the one who foretold that the name Míriel Serindë would have some significance in my life. When I was a child, some thought that the first Míriel might have finally disavowed her weariness, defied the Valar and returned. But the memories never emerged, and my hair never turned silver.”

Then she picked up two other rings, a bronze and silver. “These are my parents' names. You wear your mother on the right, father on the left. Same with the grandparents. Maternal on the right, next to their daughter, paternal on the left.”

“Is your family still alive?” Dean asked. For the first time, he wondered how old she really was. Could be fifty, could be fifty thousand.

“I don't know. They were all at the wedding.”

That left two rings, apart from the other ten Miriel had separated as a group. Dean could guess who they belonged to. “These last two, for the forefinger, are the marriage rings. You make your spouse's and give them as a gift. One is for before the marriage, I don't know the word, like a promise?”

“Engagement,” Dean said quietly.

“Yes. And the other at the blessing ceremony, just before the bonding. I only wore this ring for three hours before he was killed.”

Miriel weighed the two rings in the palm of her hand before deciding. She put on the engagement ring, but slid the other over to put in the pile with her husband's rings. Dean huffed out a noise of surprise.

“Aren't you still considered married? I mean, your souls are still together in the elvish afterlife or whatever.”

“That would be true if we actually were married. But we are not. The bonding was never completed. And after all that has happened, I do not know if we will both choose to bond again, whenever we meet again in the distant future.”

“I'm sorry, Miriel.”

“Everyone is always sorry. I don't need nyérë. Life is what it is, and I am still alive.”

* * * * *

 

Three weeks after Miriel arrived, Kevin finally called with the translated Trials. Both had been clarified nearly simultaneously, and Kevin declared that if they needed him in the next, oh, six months, they could find him lounging on a beach in Hawaii. The second trial off the demon tablet required Sam to rescue a “righteous” soul out of hell and deliver it to heaven. The third required that he turn the soul of a demon back to human. And finally, directly after the conversion, the newly reformed human must be sacrificed.

“How in the hell are we supposed to get into hell?” Dean fumed, after hearing the news. “It took multiple angels to get me out of hell. It took _Death_ to get your soul out of the box. We still don't know where your body came from. You think we can call Death again?”

“No,” said Sam. “Pretty sure I have to do it myself, or it won't fulfill the Trial. What about other gates? Colt's gate?”

Dean shook his head. “Even if we opened the door and shoved you through, how am I supposed to get you out? You can't just walk up to it on the inside and knock. There's thousands of demons crowded around it, waiting for a crack.”

“Well, there must be other, hidden gates. How is Crowley popping up here all the...?”

“I may know of a way,” Miriel interrupted.

The other two turned to stare at her. Dean crossed his arms, skeptical. “You barely know anything about hell, so how do you know how to get into it?” he asked.

“It is a dimension outside of Arda, correct? Nearby, but still foreign. What you need is access to beings who are also strangers and have adjacent dimensions.”

“Angels?” guessed Sam. “I don't think heaven and hell are 'adjacent'.”

“No, the Maiar are of Arda. I mean the faeries.”

“Oh _God_ no, not Tinkerbell,” Dean said. “I'd be fine never dealing with their milk-drunk asses again.”

“Again? When did we do fairies?”

“When you were, uh, not you. Right after you showed up at Lisa's house. I've been 'marked' as a first born, so I can see them. Assuming we can find them again.”

“The fae like to congregate in certain locations, where the veil between earth and their realm is weak,” Miriel said. “In the wilderness these places are known to us.”

“Yeah? Think you can find one closest to us?” Dean asked.

“Yes. I can make introductions. But the fae and my people have different purposes and different motivations. I cannot guarantee that they will let you into their realm, or even that you could survive the passage.”

“Fair enough,” said Sam. “Seems worth a shot. But say I do get into hell, how will I find a righteous soul?”

“Any of them,” Dean said quietly. “It's a trick question. Anyone on the rack will do.”

“But aren't most of them in hell for a reason?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, sure, the same reason I was there and Dad was there. Someone made a deal and didn't really know how fucking long 'forever' is. Look, Sam, you weren't in the regular hell so you don't know, but most of the really evil souls turn demon real quick. They're half-demon already. Whereas the new arrivals are mostly suicides and bad crossroads deals. Even if someone signs a contract for selfish reasons, like fame and fortune, you think they deserve to be tortured for that for all eternity?”

Sam nodded. “I'm going to look up some spells for faking being a demon and navigating the fairy realm. But I think we've got a plan.”

For the first time in forever, Sam looked healthier and determined. Stronger. It gave Dean hope that he could really see this through.

 

* * * * *

Miriel knew of several probable fae locations, – which remarkably enough, she was able to recognize from geographic features off Google maps – and Dean and Sam picked one down south, as opposed to tropical November upstate New York. They drove around the Oklahoma backroads for a day, windows rolled down, to pinpoint the exact location. Dean couldn't differentiate one dusty hill from another, but then she pointed and said, “that way,” and they all piled out and hauled a tent and several sleeping bags, and what Dean worried was an inadequate supply of food. Back in the bunker Sam had located a whole closet of ancient camping and mountaineering gear, remarkably well-preserved.

“I _hate_ camping,” Dean complained, as they tromped into the area. With him lugging the bulk of the supplies, considering Sam was perennially exhausted and Miriel was a mind-boggling eleven months pregnant. “Can't we just get in, drop Sam off, and get back to a motel room by midnight? Might be skanky, but at least there's heat and a vibrating bed.”

“No,” said Miriel. “If he is accepted by the fae, we will need to wait an indeterminate amount of time for his return. I understand that humans are often disoriented when returning from the faery realm. Plus, in the optimistic scenario, he will bring another soul out that will require attention.”

“You understand? You've never been yourself?”

“My people cannot directly visit the fae lands. It is not of Arda.”

Dean stopped walking, dumbfounded. “Then how in the hell do you know the fairies are here? How are you going to talk to them?”

“We still have dealings, on occasion. Their presence is...disturbing. It'll be fine.”

“Oh, we're operating on the 'trust in the force' principle now. Great.”

“Force?”

“Elvish spidey senses? Never mind.”

Even as he complained, though, the air changed. Heavy, warm and wet, despite the cold desert evening. They came out at a ring of tall whipping willowly trees, green despite the late season. In the center of the circle was a tiny spring pond only a few yards wide, which as far as Dean could tell, oozed water a short distance and disappeared under a huge rock. And then he blinked, and the balding leprechaun was on top of it.

“Dean!” it said, grinning. “You've come back for another deal? In our home now!” Then it noticed Miriel, and the joy was tempered with an expression of wonderment. “With one of the quendi?” It gave a deep bow, and she tilted her head forward in kindly acknowledgment.

“You two know each other. Of course you do,” Dean said.

“We have not had the pleasure of meeting before,” Miriel said. The leprechaun beamed at her.

Sam looked at the rock they were gazing at, then at his hiking companions. “Who are you talking to? Can you see it?”

“My dear friend,” said Miriel, “would you be so kind as to show yourself to the younger sibling? He is vital to our quest today.”

Dean couldn't detect any difference, but Sam suddenly jumped back.

“You have a quest?” the leprechaun asked.

“A most difficult request, for which we humbly beg the assistance of the mighty realm of the faery.”

“Really?” The leprechaun leaned forward, eyes wide. “What do you ask?” Dean was actually beginning to suspect that this was a different Lucky Charm altogether, for the alien-abducting one in Indiana seemed more hip to humans and their bullshit. Or elves, as it were.

“The younger sibling here needs to gain entry to the prison know as hell, and also be able to return. A most difficult task.”

“A _very_ difficult task,” it agreed, frowning. “Getting in isn't the hard part, you know. It's the getting out that will be a challenge.”

“A challenge I'm sure the great faery can rise to.”

“It is a very long journey through our lands to reach the demon prison. Are you sure your human is up to the task?”

“He will have to be. It is his burden alone.”

“And what will we receive in exchange for this great journey?” The creature eyed her belly appreciatively.

“Don't give away your first-born,” Dean muttered. Miriel ignored him.

“As compensation, the honorable fairy will receive...” She paused dramatically. “...a personal favor from myself.”

The leprechaun looked delighted. Dean's mouth dropped open. “That's _it_?” he hissed. “How come we humans don't have this kind of leverage?”

“The quendi have great power and live forever, and they _never_ forget a vow. Whereas you, human, lie through your teeth, and will be lucky to survive another five years.” It turned its attention back to Miriel, and grinned again. “Returning the younger man alive will be an additional cost, though.”

“What do you propose?”

“A song. A song of the quendi, composed just for us.”

“Agreed.”

As soon as the words existed her mouth, the leprechaun snapped its fingers. At once a warm wind swept through the circle, and more faery figures appeared. Dozens of individuals surrounded them, many indistinct and shadowy, as if the eyes couldn't focus properly on them. Miriel removed her slipper-shoes and stepped into the pond, wading in until the water was above her waist and round bump was covered. And she began to sing.

Dean had never heard a melody like that, sad and exciting and compelling all at the same time. He knew somehow she was telling them a story, possibly Dean's or Sam's or her tragedy alone. It was as if she were reaching out the universe and drawing it in, shaping it or letting it shape her, for healing in some manner beyond pain and beyond the body.

Glancing over at Sam, Dean realized his brother had heard something like this before. Sam's expression was stricken with grief, in direct contrast to the song, which was ending with hope and rejuvenation. She had sung for the soulless version of him before, and he must have turned it against her to torture her in some way. And Miriel hadn't sung for them again, not in the weeks she'd been living with them. Dean wondered how it would be possible for Sam to get past this. Maybe his weakened state over the past few months was another form of self-punishment, like he deserved to be ground down to nothing and used up to die.

The song ended on a mesmerizing aria, without words. The last glow of the sun was fading at the horizon. And when her voice stopped, the faeries blinked out like a light, and so did Sam. As if Dean and Miriel had always been standing there alone.

Dean moved to help her out of the pond, but she waved him back. “Don't get your clothes wet. I don't want to build a fire to dry them. The smoke might irritate the faery.”

“What about your clothes?”

“They will dry quickly here, in the warm circle. But we need to sleep outside it. Can you go and set up the bedding for warmth? Any flat spot outside the trees, where we can see the stars.”

He nodded. “Hey what was all that 'great fairy quest stuff' back there?”

“First rule of the faery, always, _always_ be polite.”

“That explains so much. You could have mentioned this to Sam before they left, though. How long until they're back? A day or two?”

“They said a long journey. But I told them the child would come by this phase of the next moon, and they seemed to agree the 'quest' would be complete by that time, one way or another.”

“A _month_ , are you kidding? We can't stay out here a month.”

Miriel stripped her clothes and lay them on the rock by the gushing waters. “Why not?”

“We don't have food? We don't have any wood, or extra clothes, or a lantern, or more than one roll of toilet paper, or – I don't know – _anything to do?”_

“You should learn to enjoy the world you live in more, Dean. I can think of many things to do.”

Maybe it was the fact that she was standing there naked, or the twenty minutes of ethereal singing, or the fact that her beloved stars were appearing, or the warm unnatural strangeness of the place. But when she leaned over to kiss him – not up, for they were the same height – Dean wasn't surprised, and he didn't shy away. All those nights of gentle touching, in which he shoved aside every dirty thought about the beautiful woman with stunning exposed breasts lying curled up next to him. Some kind of test, apparently, a trial of trust. Or maybe she just hadn't made up her mind, or was waiting for some undefinable moment like this one.

Miriel ran her fingers up the back of his neck, up into his hair, as they kissed. Dean went lower, down her smooth back to the point where she was damp from the pond, then down lower to her butt. The baby belly really did get in the awkward way of pulling her in close. She broke off and murmured, “Bedding. Outside the circle. The faery have influence in here.”

“That why you're ready to tear my clothes off? Magic?”

Miriel grabbed his shirt collar to pull him back towards her, and buried her face in his neck. “I'm sorry. Carrying the child is like … it's like I am very young again, and the body dominates the mind. And my soul is consumed and diminished with each day, because we are not meant to reproduce alone. But I did not want to push you before you were ready.”

“Before _I_ was ready? What?” He stroked her hair, all tied up in a hundred braids. Dean couldn't wrap his brain around what this conversation was really about. It was like talking to an alien sometimes, someone with a wholly foreign mindset. “After what Evil Sam did to you, aren't you the one who needs to be ready?”

She picked her head off his shoulder and frowned. “I don't understand what the assaults on my body have to do with sex.”

“You don't _understand_ …?” Maybe _he_ was the alien, because this discussion was going in circles. “You sure about that?”

“Yes, of course, why would...” She broke off and tipped her head, like she was just comprehending something. “You would say _rape_ is sex? That is a horrifying, disgusting perspective.”

“Ummm. Yes?” Yes, dammit, rape was sex, and yes it was horrifying and disgusting.

“Your beliefs are incorrect. They are not even in the same category as the same,” Miriel insisted.

“Well, I know they're not _exactly_ the same, obviously, but...”

“No. You are wrong. Sex must be mutual, you see? Give and receive, both. If only one person is taking, that harms the other person, and that is assault.”

“You're pregnant, Miriel. Pretty sure by definition, some kind of sex happened.”

“The conception was under unusual circumstances, but that's irrelevant. Look, say I do this.” She ran her fingertips over his lips, lovingly. “And then say I hit you on the mouth. Is that the same action?”

“No, but...”

“The same body parts are involved. Why isn't it the same?”

Dean could tell when he'd been defeated in battle. “Fine, fine, I give up. Bottom line, you're telling me you want to have sex?”

“Only if you want to.”

“Oh, obviously. Let me guess, this is good for the baby.”

“Perhaps. The child is almost fully formed. But it would be beneficial for me.”

Dean was the one to lean forward this time, and met her lips. “Good enough reason.”

They ran out of the grove, and the cold night's air just beyond the treeline was like a paddle shock to the heart. But it gave Dean, at least, an adrenaline rush, and he ran over to where they dumped their gear to lay out the old thick sleeping bags in ten seconds flat. He'd intended to zip two of the bags together and crawl in for the cozy warmth, but she just pushed him down on top of the pile and began to remove his clothes. When he was a nude as she was, she climbed on top, no preliminaries, as if they'd both been horny for days.

Dean thought by her frantic expediency that it would be hard and quick. Like they would release tension first, then go back to the same cuddle mode they'd had every night and slowly explore one another's bodies. Apparently that wasn't the way pregnant elves did it, though, because as soon as he entered her she slowed down. Every movement was deliberate and intense, with no attempt to bring either one of them off in a timely manner. Instead she revved him up for hours, with gently increasing crescendos up to a point where he didn't think he could hold out any longer, and then back down, floating, slow. She'd pull him up off the ground to suckle her breasts, and then take back the energy by fucking him harder to the edge.

When they finally came, as eastern horizon just started to glow, it wasn't like any orgasm Dean had ever experienced. Instead of intense pleasure, he plateaued out on happiness and love, and couldn't tell whether it came from him or her or the unborn child in between. Give and receive, in equal measure, underneath the vast expanse of stars.

“This is what you really meant, when you said both parents' souls went into a new baby,” Dean said much later, in the dawn's light while curled against her back. “You fuck like rabbits right up to the birth.”

“The entire pregnancy. It's a lot of work to make a new child. The father must contribute.” Miriel laughed and kissed him. “But there had to be love first, or at least affection and trust. I know you love another.”

“That's past now. I couldn't keep putting her in danger, and she deserved a normal life.”

“And you do not? It's not past for your soul.”

Dean didn't say anything for a moment. Then, “Well, life is what it is. Think I heard that somewhere.”

“Yes. But you can still change it. Even your brother tries to do so, even as the dark forces attempt to corrupt him over and over.”

“Is that an admission of forgiveness?”

“No.” Her voice was full of contempt for the concept. “But his soul yearns for atonement to counteract the darkness within. I will allow him that.”

“When this is all over, when the baby's born and the Trials are done, what will you do then? Will you let Sam be the father? I can't be the substitute forever.”

Miriel tightened her grip on his arm. “Dean, do you not understand what is going on here? Sam's soul is being consumed for this great challenge. He will be lucky to survive the faery passage. He will not survive the third task. This is the atonement he seeks.”

“You don't know us Winchesters. We'll find a way to bring him back. We always do.”

“That may be a weakness and a failing.”

“I don't care. I'll find a way.”

She shook her head at his stubborness, and pulled him harder against her. 

* * * * *

It was nearly two weeks before Sam returned. Despite the copious sex and luxurious downtime, Dean was about ready to jump in the pond himself and demand that the leprechaun take him to their leader. Then on the morning of the twelfth day, a shrill musical note rang through the valley. Sam popped back into existence right next Dean and Miriel's campsite, and immediately collapsed.

His skin was ashen gray.

Dean rushed over to his brother's broken form, while Miriel gazed at the air around him.

“Dean, there's a disembodied soul here. And one of the creatures that leads human souls to their destination. It says it's here for Sam.”

“No!” shouted Dean. “Tessa! Or whichever reaper you are, just take the other person to heaven! I'll call Castiel, I'll call Death, I'll...”

Miriel sat down cross-legged by Sam's head, and began to sing. This song wasn't a story, Dean could tell, although _how_ he could now tell was a mystery. It was a summoning, calling the universe itself for clemency and action. And it was some kind of binding spell, locking Sam to his damaged body.

Out of the corner of his eye Dean could see Tessa had revealed herself, and she looked just as shocked as he did. “Why are you involved, elf?” Tessa said, when Miriel's song wound down. “Your people know better than to interfere in the natural order of things. You know there will be repercussions from this act.”

“It is retribution. I only do to him what he did to me. And this is a rare case where the greater good is served by interference. Balance will soon be restored.”

“Whatever, I'll let the boss-man know. Dean, as usual, you're a terrible influence.”

“How am _I_ getting blamed?” Dean complained, but by that time Tessa was gone, presumably with the lucky soul. He bent over Sam and shook his shoulder to wake him up. “Come on, Sam, open your eyes. You've gotta say the incantation now, buddy. Sam! Wake up!”

Very slowly the eyelids lifted. Sam's eyes were filled with agony, but he managed to croak, “Words...spell.”

Dean bent over further, and whispered the Enochian word-for-word in Sam's ear, as Sam repeated them out loud. As with the first trial, Sam's skin began to crack and glow as the power of an entire dimension parallel to earth accumulated in him as a focal point. His screaming continued long after the glow dissipated, as if he were reliving the moment again and again, until Miriel was once more forced to sing to quiet him down.

At the sound of her voice Sam broke off in great gasping gulps and turned towards her with a look of hysteria in his eyes. “I remember you now,” he whispered.

“You remembered her before, Sam,” Dean said.

“The wall is down. Now I remember everything.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

Sam finished inside the trussed up elf, as she stared at the plexiglass window, projecting herself to some faraway place. Even after six months of cyclical starvation and abuse, she was a remarkably tight hole and beautiful body. The setup was standard – arms chained to a crank, so her could haul her to a pivot point without getting kicked in the balls. She still engaged in acts of petty resistance, calling him names and kicking at him and using her teeth, just generally provoking him in a futile attempt to get him pissed off enough to kill her. So far it had only inspired new and inventive beatings, and truthfully Sam was starting to get bored enough to contemplate getting rid of her. Now it was a matter of coming up with a creative death worthy of her admirable spunk.

“Hey, come back,” he said, twisting a nipple to wake her up. “Don't dissociate on me now, pretty. It's like you don't even want to be here.”

“Are you going to kill me today?” she asked in a flat voice. The new thing, asking every day, or every time he bothered to come in, which was once a week or so. Her pathetic version of begging.

“I'll most likely kill you in the morning,” he assured her. Two could play this Princess Bride game. One of these days it would come true.

“Liar,” she said. “Lying thieving _saura_ _úvanimo_. May you die a painful, hideous death of a thousand snake bites tomorrow.”

“Oh, it wounds. Really, my feelings were hurt.” He pulled out, and she tried to squirm away in disgust. Fat lot of good that did her at this point. “What, don't want me to come in you? Afraid you'll end up naked and pregnant? Wait, one of those is already true.”

The elf snorted. “That's not possible, thankfully. There are some things you cannot compel. I will die before I break that badly.”

“Really? Huh. Why not? Isn't your body basically a jazzed up human model that never wears out? You can't interbreed?”

She didn't respond, which made Sam instantly suspicious that indeed, some half-human elves were running around out there. Girl was a fucking terrible liar.

“Tell me,” he insisted. “I know you like to tell stories. Ninety percent of the time when I spy on you, you're singing a damned epic ballad to yourself. Who else are you going to talk to but me?”

“There have been some marriages,” she admitted. “They all end tragically. How could it not, when one is doomed to live many lifetimes without the other?”

“So it _is_ possible. How do you do it? Wish hard and click your heels three times, and a baby will come?” An idea formed in his head, a small spark. It would probably kill her, but what fun would be had.

“An act of free will, of the body and soul of both parents. Something that is a foreign concept to you.”

“We'll see about that. I still have ways of controlling you that you haven't dreamed of yet.”

* * * * *

 

Sam returned in two days with the containers of blood, courtesy of Crowley. If this didn't break her, nothing would. He had decided to hand her over to Samuel in that case, watch _them_ have a poke at her, since the other elves they'd captured had fled their bodies months ago. Miriel alone seemed to be trapped, no matter how painful or humiliating he made her existence.

He reasoned through the problem very rationally. The elves were clearly obsessed with self-control over their bodies: Choose to heal and thus live forever, choose to bond with a spouse, choose to conceive, choose to die. He'd already taken away two of those choices, and the healing was useful, so that left the baby thing. Not that he gave a shit about any actual kid, and honestly given her healing abilities he figured she'd probably auto-abort about five seconds after sperm met egg. But the principle of it fascinated him: Could he _make_ her divide herself, put herself into something new? Did she accidentally bond to him, that night at the wedding? Could he make her do anything, really? Her body broke so beautifully, why did her mind refuse to break?

She sat against the wall facing the feeble light glowing through the window, and sniffed at the blood as her pulled the containers out of a plastic bag. “You really are determined to turn yourself into the foulest dark creature, in the body as well as mind,” she sneered.

“Maybe I'm already a demon and just don't know it yet,” he said, shrugging. “Who cares? It's great to be me either way.”

Sam screwed off the milk carton lid and chugged the contents down. He not only hadn't touched the demon blood since returning from hell, he didn't even have the urge to do it. Whatever made it addictive before was gone, so he didn't know if this was going to work at all. But telekinesis? Kind of awesome, he wished he'd thought to try it before now.

The blood surged through his stomach and out to his extremities in a tingling rush. And then...nothing. Sam felt nothing, no energy build-up, no power high from the knowledge that he could crack necks from ten paces, no rush of lust or excitement. He was exactly the same person. Point one for the already-a-demon hypothesis.

But then he looked at the emaciated naked elf chained to the floor, passively watching him with her hating eyes, and suddenly he _saw_ her. Not her scrawny reduced body, but the extraordinary spirit behind it, holding her together. It _was_ her, in some essential sense. And he knew from previous experience that if her spirit could be controlled, it could be induced to do anything to her body.

Sam raised his hand up towards her. Through the bars she rolled her eyes with contempt. He gave a little tug, though, just a test see if this would work and if she could sense it. The elf cried out and sprang to her feet, rushing at the bars towards him as far as the chain could reach.

“WHAT ARE YOU?” she shouted at the top of her lungs. Then, with equal speed, she rammed herself head-first into the wall. A full-blown suicide attempt, her first in many months. Sam flicked his wrist sent her flying in opposite direction, and pinned her to the side of the cage so she couldn't injure her head any further.

“No, no, none of that,” he said, unlocked the door and entering. “I control your body now.”

Blood was pouring down the side of her face, but she was still conscious enough to struggle. “Your dark arts may control this body, but _I_ command my fëa in ways your crude methods never can.”

“Really? Then why'd you try and kill yourself?” He pushed the soul again, inwards this time, towards her vital organs, and she gave an agonized scream. The immaterial could control the material, it was fascinating.

And he could tell everything about her through her soul. He knew she was running mineral deficiencies, but that it was recoverable. He knew that the blow to her head had damaged some of the frontal cortex, and even now her brain was rerouting and repairing. He could sense her affection for plants and how they loved her in return, and her loathing of his smell. He could see the how much energy she had wasted growing her hair back every time he cut it off. She'd literally given an arm's worth of muscle for that vain hair. And he knew there was still live sperm in her body, so he didn't have to rape her again to make this happen.

All Sam had to do was induce her spirit to manipulate her ovaries. Simple, really. These elves could conceive at any time, if they wished it; they could have swarmed over the whole world, if only they had the will. Instead, due to some ill-conceived loyalty to the angels or the missing God or his minions, they had let the humans take over. Their mistake.

He directed the soul to start ovulation, and here she really struggled, ripping the soul away from him and directing it to other functions. But she couldn't flee the body. It was still tied to her form, and there was nowhere to run. To his surprise, when the ovulation sequence started, her soul automatically reached out towards him. Children were conceived with both the body and soul, she had said, so Sam stepped right next to her, against her skin, to let it explore.

And the soul met nothing on his end.

Miriel began to laugh, the her bitterest mocking yet. “I know what you are now. You're an orc. You have no soul. We wiped your kind from the face of the earth entire ages ago. Watch your days, _orco,_ sooner or later one of my kind will slit your throat just as easily as we did to your spiritual ancestors.

Sam grabbed her neck now, angry now although he had no idea why. _Why_ the fuck wouldn't she break? He directed the part that was extending back inside herself, towards that rarest of cells, which would soon begin to divide. “Break off a piece of yourself,” he said.

“No.”

“Do it, or I will shred you from the inside.”

“No.”

“You are going to die a true death when I pulverize your soul, and cut you off forever from your precious Arda.”

“I'm not afraid to die. Right now I welcome death.”

At last, with the final push of energy from the waning blood, he shoved the fëa down. The tiniest fraction of it broke off, but that was enough to plant the seed. Miriel roared with despair and frustration at his greatest violation yet, a scream he hadn't heard since the mourning wail over her lover six months before.

At that very moment, his phone on the table outside the cage began to ring. Sam ignored it the first time, but whoever it was persisted through a couple of calls, so finally with an irritated snap he dropped the elf to the floor.

“What?” he said, not bothering to look at who it was. “I'm busy.”

“Nice of you to pick up, Sam.” Samuel, his smug grandfather. Sam shoved down the urge to smash the phone on the table. “Just thought you'd like to know we found the djinn. And you'll never guess where they are. Battle Creek.”

“Dean.” Battle Creek actually wasn't too far from the cabin. Sam guessed he should save his hapless brother's ass again, for appearance's sake. “I'm headed in that direction, I'll check it out and get back to you.”

“Yeah, you do that, Sam.”

A cold breeze blew through the cabin as he hung up. Sam looked up, and with a rage suddenly realized he'd left the cage door open. She must have broken half the bones in both her wrists getting them out of the shackles. He dashed for the front door, intending to chase her down. A naked injured elf, running through freshly fallen snow, shouldn't be hard to track.

There was not a trace of footprints to be found, besides his own.

Sam looked at the forest surrounding the property beyond his burn line, and at his car. There were fifty directions she could have gone, and she was motivated to really run. So he shrugged at the loss of his favorite toy, got in his car and put on his best fake-human face to see Dean, for the first time in nearly a year.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

The wall was down, but contrary to the judgment of both Death and Cas, Sam refused to die. Whether it was Miriel's song or just his own cussedness, Sam clung by a thread to his fragile body. Dean did call Castiel down for some emergency repairs, but Cas only said that most of the damage was irrecoverable. He healed Sam's internal organs enough for another month of life at most, and marveled at his mental resilience in staying sane with the wall down. The third trial would need to be completed soon.

Dean didn't believe it. Not in his heart. No way Sam could die.

They arrived back at the bunker and a strange sort of sluggish melancholy fell on everyone there. Sam slept for about two days to recover as best he could from fairyland, which he described as like Alice in Wonderland on mescaline and ecstasy. The wall had broken as soon as he entered hell, but oddly enough, it just helped him fit in with the rest of the demons and tortured souls. After the long sleep, Sam then dragged his stabbing body up to obsessively dig through the Men of Letters' research materials, hunting for an actionable spell to cure a demon.

Miriel too holed up and withdrew within herself, perhaps because she was no longer living outside, perhaps because time for the baby drew near. Her scattered plants had grown to luxurious levels in the two weeks they had been gone. She spent most of her days resting and scribbling in journals. Stories of her people, she said, translated into English. For their library. She still came to Dean every night, but it seemed more for comfort than the intense energy transfer of only a week ago. On their sides they would slowly make love with him behind her, and his arms wrapped around her and his face buried in her braids. It was about the most peaceful and content sex Dean had ever had.

She set up her birthing area up at the telescope platform, which freaked out Dean. Didn't that mean they'd have to take a newborn down a ladder at some point? Dean tried to convince her that maybe seeing a doctor might be a good idea, as a backup plan, because he sure as hell didn't want to play midwife. Miriel seemed surprised that such a profession even existed (“You need a healer for birth? But I am not sick.”) and waved away his concerns. Apparently nothing ever went wrong with Elvish childbirth, but even if it did, there was nothing a human doctor would be able to do.

Two weeks after Sam's return, before dawn on the day she predicted on the nose, Dean woke up and Miriel wasn't there. She wasn't up in her nest, either. Dean paced and complained and fretted for hours, and even Sam looked tired and nervous.

“Dude, what if Miriel left for good? What if she decided to have the baby somewhere else?”

“Then she left. We told her … she could come and go … as she likes. Don't control freak her, Dean. It's … the last thing she wants.” The last couple of days, even Sam's speech was beginning to slur, as if it took tremendous effort to utter every word.

“I know but it's freakin' snowing outside. It's getting dark. She won't even wear a damn coat, so what if…?”

The door down the hall creaked open, and Miriel waddled in with snowflakes melting in her hair. “What?” she said, at their expressions.

“We were worried,” Sam said slowly.

“It is the birthing day, what were you worried about? I had to walk, of course, but I wouldn't go far.”

 _"Now_ you tell us,” Dean muttered. “How do you feel?”

“It is time.”

She didn't look to be in pain at all, but a fine sheen of sweat covered her face. Miriel seemed even taller than usual somehow, energized and alert. She gracefully walked over to the telescope support ladder, hit the button to open the dome cover, and began to climb. Dean gave Sam a nod, and followed a few rungs behind her. He could her Sam whisper “good luck” on his way up.

“Are you really sure you want to do it up there? How are we supposed to get you and the baby down?”

“The same way we got up. Yes, I'm sure, it's closest to the stars. I do not want the child to be born underground, but outside it is too cold.”

“Ya think?”

They reached the platform, which was now enclosed on all sides like a small room, and covered in green and blooming things. Dean had asked her once how she had such a green thumb, and she replied, “I ask the plants very nicely to grow, and they like me.” She didn't have a proper bed up there, but more of a pile of pillows, and a soft woven blanket with intricate designs spread out over the floor. On a small desk – and again, how in the hell she had lifted that up there was a mystery to Dean – was the pile of leather-bound notebooks where she had written down the Elvish legends, and a tiny lamp.

“Take off your shirt,” Miriel said. She dropped the linen shift she always wore. Dean was always a little awe-inspired when he first saw her, even though he had seen her without her clothes many times. The belly seemed impossibly huge to be attached to an actual person, but also seamless and shapely and beautiful.

“What do you want me to do?” Dean asked.

“Unbraid my hair. Then nothing but help hold me up if I need it. The skin contact is a comfort.”

“A human pillow yet again,” said Dean.

He sat down with an actual pillow against the wall and she leaned against him between his legs. Dean worked slowly on the hair, and she closed her eyes and appeared to rest. Despite the fact that he'd never seen her without the braids, the ties came off easily, and the silky strands were unmatted. They fell apart in cascades, perfectly black and straight.

Miriel did nothing but rock slightly for nearly an hour. And then she began to mutter, in her native language Dean guessed, which even in trancy whispers rolled off the tongue like a melody. He couldn't detect any contractions. Instead of stopping and starting with painful yanks, her body just slowly opened, and the baby slipped out onto the blanket. Both she and the baby made so little noise, Dean was taken by surprise when Miriel leaned forward and picked the infant up. She cut the cord with the jewel dagger that Sam had recovered for her, and placed the baby on her chest. Instead of provoking the familiar cry of a human newborn taking its first breath, Miriel began to sing. The song was soft and contained nothing but joy, as if an entire people were celebrating the new person's entry into the world. Dean knew this same song had been sung at Miriel's birth, and all the way through the generations to the very first elves.

“Oh my God,” Dean whispered when the song was done. “Can I touch her?”

“Of course. She will recognize you.”

Miriel scooted forward and transferred the baby to Dean's bare chest. Even in the dim light Dean could make out her crystal-blue eyes rolled up straight at his face, filled with baby-wonder. It was hard not to stare back.

“What's her name?” he asked.

“Serinda. A play on the name of the one who gave me this name I currently use.” She retrieved a long blue scarf from a drawer in the desk. “Here, I'll help tie her to you and you can take her down. I'm sure Sam wants to see her.”

“Me? Should you be left alone?”

“I need to expel the afterbirth. It's fine, you see there is no discomfort. I will meet you in your room when you are done. Go, introduce her to your brother. He could use a comfort.”

“You don't mind, uh, Sam being involved?”

“Not for this. Every child should meet its father at least once.”

Reluctantly Dean complied. The baby was snug and cozy in her wrap, and he knew Sam would give anything to hold her, but it seemed strange nonetheless.

Sam was in his bedroom flopped on the bed, but his eyes were wide awake. “Look what I brought,” Dean said, and his brother jumped.

“It's hardly been two hours, she's done already? I didn't hear any crying either.”

“Magical elves, they make it look easy. Here, sit up and take off your shirt. Babies like skin, apparently. Miriel named her Serinda.”

Sam pushed himself up to the head of the bed, wheezing slightly, and peeled off his T-shirt. Dean tried not to gasp in surprise at his emaciated form. He'd been hiding it under layers of clothes, but Sam had to have lost sixty pounds. Dean pulled the baby out of the sling, her form so tiny that she practically fit into one hand, and placed her face down on Sam's chest.

“Hi, little one,” he murmured, and wrapped his long arms around her wiggling body. “Shouldn't we put her in a diaper or something?”

“You're asking me?”

Sam closed his eyes and kissed her head. He held her for several long minutes, as if drinking up all the comfort and strength he could glean from one tiny body. Then he handed her back, with some tears in his eyes. “Here, she should probably go back to her mom. She probably needs to nurse or something.”

“Yeah, okay. Rest up, bud. Are you, uh, sure you want to continue with the last Trial, Sam? You're not looking that great. If we stop now, maybe we can...”

“I'm fine for now. Besides, we haven't found the formula for the demon cure, have we?”

“I guess not.”

Dean turned to go, when Sam cleared his throat. “Hey, Dean? Thanks for stepping up, with the baby and Miriel and everything. I appreciate it. Everything you've done, actually.”

They hadn't discussed Dean's unconventional relationship with Miriel, like, at all, although Dean was sure Sam knew. He also knew Sam just didn't feel he had any right to an opinion on it. So Dean shrugged. “Sure, no problem, Dad. Get some sleep.”

Dean went back to the library and called up to Miriel's perch. She asked him to go to his room and rock the baby to sleep, and she would join them. He sank into that ridiculous armchair with the baby bundled up and attached to his chest. Dean felt wrung out all of sudden, which was a bit rich considering _he_ hadn't done any of the work tonight. He hummed some dimly remembered lullaby from when Sam was a baby, and before he knew it, drifted off.

* * * * *

When Dean woke up it was with a jerky panic, for Serinda was no longer attached to his chest. But a quick scan around the room found her in a previously unseen woven basket next to his chair, sleeping in a tight swaddle. He groggily glanced at the clock and was amazed to discover he'd been asleep for a good five hours, and it was now close to morning.

Serinda gave a little toothless yawn in her sleep, and it was about the cutest thing Dean had ever seen until he spotted the glimmer of a gold around the baby neck's. He pulled it out. It was a gold chain, and attached to the chain was a gold ring with a square geometric pattern on the outside, and writing on the inside. Dean was fairly certain it was the one inscribed with the name “Míriel.” Serinda's mother ring.

“God _damn_ it,” Dean muttered under his breath. He picked himself up and ran to Sam's room.

Sam wasn't in his bed either.

Next to Sam's bed, however, was a box of papers and old files. Dean flipped through it, and spotted _Demon Research_ and _successful conversion of a demon soul back into a human through blood..._

“Oh, SON OF A BITCH,” he said.

Dean had to run around the bunker to confirm, but it was true. Both Sam and Miriel were gone, and he was alone.

 

* * * * *

Miriel heard Sam leave, but had to wait to follow him until she was sure Dean and Serinda were both deeply asleep and safe. Fortunately she knew where he was going, for he had captured the demon and kept it imprisoned since before his last weakening, before the faeries. The trees cooperated and whispered to her his whereabouts, although their reports could be quite slow, as expected from the forests. That's how she had found him and his brother in the first place. Also fortunately, it was not a long walk from the underground dwelling where she had left the child.

When she arrived at the abandoned place of worship, the disgusting demon was already mostly gone. Sam had been infusing it with human blood, his own blood perhaps, although that was hardly pure itself. She made noise as she entered, and Sam turned around to see her there. Miriel walked over to the bench he was sitting on, waiting patiently for the demon's time, and sat down next to him. Still some distance, but nearby.

“Did you come to make sure I finished the job?” he asked quietly.

“I knew you would,” Miriel replied. “You wish to atone. This is a small repair of a downfallen world, but one that will make your people and your daughter a little more safe. I just wanted to watch.” She tipped her head as she looked at him, trying and failing to forget the orc Sam just for a moment. “It's like a memory of hate now. I know you are not the same person.”

“My daughter.” He'd lost track of the sentence after hearing that. Very close to over, his organs were shutting down. “You left her with Dean?”

“Yes. With his help, her soul will turn towards the humans now. In the past the half-elves had a choice of which people to follow, but I rescind that choice. That is _my_ prerogative. My only gift to her as her mother.”

“Can I ask you why? If you didn't want her, why … why did you keep her?” He paused for breath, then continued. “I remember what you can do, Miriel. You could have stopped… it ... the pregnancy at any time.”

“I thought about it a long time. I did not know what to do. Finally I decided that there must be a reason why I escaped at just that moment, and not the day before, or the month before. There must be some purpose to the world. I do not regret my choice.”

“Thanks...for letting me see her.”

“You waited until the birth to complete this quest. It is only fitting for you to meet her, and she to meet you. The good you.”

An alarm went off next to him, and he picked up a container of more blood. “Last injection. This should be it. I, uh, have no right to ask this, but … can you do me a favor? For Dean. He'd be...very upset...if we both abandon him.” His lips were turning blue, and the air was slower in coming in and out. She nodded. “Wait here for him. Tell him goodbye. Tell him I love him. Tell... that I have to do this. It's the only reason I was let out of the Box."

“I will do as you ask, although he will probably bother me about the child.”

“True. Guilt trip. Thing about missing moms.” Sam pushed himself up off the bench, a tremendous effort, and wobbled over to the tied up demon inside the magic circle. He stabbed it not very accurately into its neck. She did not attempt to help him. He did not ask for help, or forgiveness.

The demon – ex-demon – screamed, not of anger or hate but of fear and long-forgotten pain. Sam placed his hand on the host's forehead, and with slow deliberation recited the incantation to release the tortured soul from the otherwise lifeless body. Its previous soul must have already vacated. Miriel was fascinated to see one of the reaper creatures appear at that very second, to guide the raw human soul to whatever the fate of Men was beyond their doom.

Both Sam's body and soul began to disintegrate, and Miriel could feel the uncanny link between them burning at last in the fire. His final words were the other incantation, the one with tremendous, dimension-altering energies. He was the final sacrifice of course, not the reformed demon. The very world shrieked at the spell, as every raw wound oozing into the human hell crusted over and sealed itself. No matter what their actions in life, the souls could only flow in one direction now, as according to the original music. The marred world now had a fresh spot of healing.

Dean arrived a short time later, with the child still attached to him, she was amused to see. He could have left her for a short time back in the underground hole, which was quite safe as a protective spot. A good choice as a parent; he would never leave her alone. Dean's grief was enormous, and also his anger, but she was not capable of comfort today. She delivered her message, and kissed him for both Sam and herself, and told him goodbye.

“Where are you going? Why won't you stay?” It was impossible for him to understand, as she predicted.

“To find what's left of my people. I might sail to the straight road, or I might not. I haven't decided, but my fate will not be the first Míriel's fate, for that name is done now. Teach Serinda the stories I left. When she is old enough, if she wants to know us, she'll know where to look.”

“Who are you, really?”

Miriel leaned over to his ear then, and whispered her real name. The she kissed the child once again, and walked out of the consecrated ground, and never looked back.

 

 

 


End file.
